Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/11

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"Deep calleth unto deep, at the noise of thy water-spouts." Most appositely did the poet Brainerd, in his beautiful apostrophe to Niagara, quote from the inspired Minstrel, "deep calleth unto deep." Simple and significant also, was its Indian appellation, the "water-thunderer." To the wandering son of the forest,

it forcibly suggested the image of that Great Spirit, who in darkness and storm sends forth from the skies a mighty voice.

The immense volume of water, which distinguishes Niagara from all other cataracts, is seldom fully realized by the casual visitant. Transfixed by his emotions, he forgets that he sees the surplus waters of these vast inland seas, Superior, Huron, Michigan, and Erie, arrested in their rushing passage to the Ocean, by a fearful barrier of rock, 160 feet in height. He scarcely recollects that the tributaries to this river, or strait, cover a surface of 150,000 miles. Indeed, how can he bow his mind to aught of arithmetical computation, when in the presence of this monarch of floods.

Niagara river flows from south to north, and is two miles in width when it issues from Lake Erie. It is majestic and beautiful in its aspect, and spreads out at Grand Island to a breadth of three miles, like a