Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/210

Rh part of all the fresh-water on the earth—flow the waters of the Niagara fall. The river on its way from Lake Erie encounters, near the fall, an island called Iris, or Goat Island, which divides it into two branches; by the one is formed the Canada fall, by the other, which hurries broad and thundering past our windows, is formed the American fall. Between them are somewhat above twenty feet of flat rock, overgrown with brush-wood. The fall on the Canada side is the richest and the most beautiful. Its breadth is 1500 feet, its height 154 feet. The fall on the New York side is 600 feet wide and 167 feet high. The Canada fall, with its beautiful half-circle, lies just in the middle of the stream. A lofty pyramid of spray-mist ascends from the foaming abyss at its feet, and rises toward heaven high above the level of the fall, like the spirit of Niagara, whose cloudy brow moves itself hither and thither in the wind. The stream from the Canada fall soon joins that of the American side. United they form below what is called “the whirlpool.” The stream there makes a bend and the agitated water is swung round. After that it flows on more calmly as the Niagara river or sound, twenty-five miles, pours itself through Lake Ontario into the magnificent St. Lawrence—the river of a thousand islands—and by it into the Atlantic Ocean. Trollhätten in Sweden has neither the mass of waters of Niagara nor its majesty, but it has more history, more romantic life. Niagara is a grand scene, a sublime action. Trollhätten is a series of scenes and actions. Niagara is a hymn. Trollhätten is a Valasong.

That which most surprised me in Niagara, because I had not expected it, and that which charmed me every day was, besides the smaragdus-green colour of the water, the play of the rainbows over and around the fall, according as the sunbeams fell, or as the wind bore the water-spirit's movable pyramid. This formed a succession