Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/112

92 certain audacious being, one Judge Porter, is called the "Terrapin Tower."

We went down the steps of Goat Island, and, coming to the height of the upper course of the Niagara, I saw a bridge, or rather some planks, thrown from one rock to the other, which united the tower with the banks of the river. The bridge was but a few feet from the abyss, and below it roared the torrent. We ventured on these planks, and in a few minutes reached the rock which supported Terrapin Tower. This round tower, forty-five feet in height, is built of stone, with a circular balcony at its summit, and a roof covered with red stucco. The winding staircase, on which thousands of names are cut, is wooden. Once at the top of the tower, there is nothing to do but cling to the balcony and look.

The tower is in the midst of the cataract. From its summit the eye plunges into the depths of the abyss, and peers into the very jaws of the ice monsters, as they swallow the torrent. One feels the rock tremble which supports it. It is impossible to hear anything but the roaring of the surging water. The spray rises to the top of the monument, and splendid rainbows are formed by the sun shining on the vaporized water.

By a simple optical illusion, the tower seems to move with a frightful rapidity, but, happily, in the opposite direction to the fall, for, with the contrary illusion, it would be impossible to look at the gulf from giddiness.

Breathless and shivering, we went for a moment inside the tower, and the Doctor took the opportunity of saying to me, "This Terrapin Tower, my dear sir, will some day fall into the abyss, and perhaps sooner than is expected."

"Ah! indeed!"

"There is no doubt about it. The great Canadian Fall recedes insensibly, but still, it recedes. The tower, when it was first built in 1833, was much farther from the cataract. Geologists say that the fall, in the space of thirty-five thousand years, will be found at Queenstown, seven miles up the stream. According to Mr. Bakewell, it recedes a yard in a year; but according to Sir Charles Lyell one foot only. The time will come when the rock which supports the tower, worn away by the water, will glide down the Falls of the cataract. Well, my dear sir, remember this: