NIAGARA RIVER AND FALLS (ante), received their name from the Indians, in whose language the word Niagara means the " thunder of water." A record of a voyage In 1525 by a French mariner named James Cartier contains, it is believed, the first printed allusion to either. In 1603 the first map of the district was constructed by a Frenchman named Champlain; and 75 years later the river and the cataract were visited by Father Hennepin and described at some length in a book. The river receives the waters of all the upper lakes—the Erie, St. Clair, Huron, Michigan, Superior, and a number of smaller ones; and neither the snows of winter nor the evaporation of summer, neither rains 'nor drought, materially affect it. Its waters flow on, full and clear, perpetually the same, with the exception, that about once every seven years they have a gradual rise and fall, which is attributed to some undiscovered disturbance that affects lake Erie. From the foot of the falls to Lewiston, a distance of 7 in. the river descends 104 ft., running between perpendicular walls 250 ft. high; then the Light of the chasm gradually dimin ishes the next 7 m., and during the remainder of its course to lake Ontario, until it is only about 25 feet. It has long been a theory with geologists that this deep chasm, and consequently the gigantic cataract, has been made by the action of the water on the lime stone strata through countless ages. Originally, it is believed, the falls were simply
from the plateau that overlooks lake Ontario at Lewiston. Within the short period even of less than a hundred years many changes have occurred that are significant connec tion with this opini9n. In 1818 large parts of the edge of the precipice on the American side of the falls broke down; in 1828 fragments descended from the Horseshoe and since 1855 several other pieces have broken away. An able report of prof. James Hall, in 1842, for the state geological survey, also shows that the falls at that time were differ ent in important respects from the description given of them by Father Hennepin, who described a third fall from the Canadian side toward the e., facing the line of the main i ur full. and caused by a great rock that turned the divided current in this direction. Sir Charles Lyell—in whose work, Travels in North America, may be found the most com plete accounts of Niagara—estimates that the falls wear away about one foot of the preci pice every year.