A Book of the United States. Various
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through a rocky chasm four miles in length, presenting the greatest variety of cascades and rapids, boiling pools and eddies. The rock is a dark limestone, and contains abundance of petrified marine shells. Glen’s Falls are upon the Hudson, eighteen miles above Saratoga, and are a grand rapid, falling sixty-seven feet in a course of one hundred and seventy yards. Jessup’s Falls and Hadley Falls are beautiful cataracts on the same stream, a few miles above. Claverack Falls are upon a stream near the city of Hudson; they descend down a precipice of dark rocks into a deep chasm shaded with forest trees. The cataracts near Ithaca comprise four hundred and thirty-eight feet of descent in a mile; the fall of the Cohoes on the Mohawk is seventy feet.
At Bellows Falls, five miles from the town of Walpole, on the Connecticut, the whole descent of the river, in the space of half a mile, is forty-four feet; and it includes several pitches, one below another, at the highest of which a large rock divides the stream into two channels, each about ninety feet wide. When the water is low, the eastern channel is dry, being crossed by a solid rock, and the whole stream falls into the western channel, where, being contracted to the breadth of sixteen feet, it flows with astonishing force and rapidity. A bridge has been built over these falls, from which an advantageous view is had of their interesting and romantic scenery. Some years ago a canal, over half a mile long, was dug through the rocks around the falls, for the passage of flat-bottomed boats and rafts. Notwithstanding the velocity of the current, salmon used to pass up the fall in great numbers. Amoskeag Falls, in the Merrimack, consist of three successive pitches, falling nearly fifty feet. The Housatonic Falls, in the north-west part of Connecticut, are the finest in New England.
The Passaic Falls, in Paterson, New Jersey, twenty-two miles north-west of New York, are highly picturesque and beautiful. The river Passaic rises in the northern part of New Jersey, and after a circuitous course, falls into Newark Bay. At the town of Paterson, about twenty miles from its mouth, is the Great Fall, where the river, about one hundred and twenty feet wide, and running with a very swift current, reaches a deep chasm, or cleft, which crosses the channel, and falls perpendicularly about seventy feet, in one entire sheet. One end of the cleft is closed up, and the water rushes out at the other with incredible rapidity, in an acute angle to its former direction, and is received into a large basin. It thence takes a winding course through the rocks, and spreads again into a very considerable channel. The cleft is from four to twelve feet in breadth, and is supposed to have been produced by an earthquake. When this cataract was visited by a late British traveller, the spray refracted two beautiful rainbows, primary and secondary, which greatly assisted in producing as fine a scene as imagination can conceive. It was also heightened by the effect of another fall, of less magnificence, about ninety feet above.
Source of Passaic Falls.
The spirit of utility, in its stern disregard of the picturesque, has diverted the current of the Passaic into so many channels for the supply of manufactories, that the cascade is now an object of interest only during the wet season.
The Potomac, which forms the boundary between the states of Maryland and Virginia, is navigable to the city of Washington; above which it is obstructed by several falls, of which the most remarkable are Little Falls, three miles above Washington, with a descent of thirty-seven feet: Great Falls, eight and a half miles further up, with a descent of seventy-six feet; which have been made navigable by means of five locks: Seneca Falls, six miles above, descending ten feet: Shenandoah Falls, sixty miles higher up the river, where the Potomac breaks through the Blue Ridge at Harper’s Ferry: Houre’s Falls, five miles above the Shenandoah.
In addition to the cataracts above enumerated, we may notice the Falling Spring, in Bath county, Virginia, which forms a beautiful cascade, streaming from a perpendicular precipice, two hundred feet high; and the Tuccoa Fall, in Franklin county, Georgia, which, though one of the most beautiful that can be conceived, is scarcely yet known to geographers. It is one hundred and eighty-seven feet in height, and the water is propelled over a perpendicular rock. When the stream is full, it pours over the steep in one expansive magnificent sheet, amid clouds of spray, on which the prismatic colors are reflected with a most enchanting effect.
The cascades of the Catskill Mountains are very romantic and beautiful. The Kasterskill is formed by the union of two branches, one rising in two lakes, about one and a half miles east of the western cascade, the other about half the distance in a northerly direction. The best view of the western fall is from below, the foliage above being so thick as in a great measure to obscure it. Below the fall the banks of the stream, which are nearly three hundred feet in height, rise almost perpendicularly from the surface of the water. The following description is from the pen of Mr. H. E. Dwight.
‘The rocks on each side of the stream project so as partially to eclipse the sides of the fall. They have fallen from time to time, in such a manner as to form seventeen natural steps, rising one above another. We stationed ourselves on these steps, to enjoy the scenery around us. Before us the stream fell in a beautiful sheet, exhibiting its transparent waters, when, striking the inclined plane, it rushed down with headlong fury, bearing on its surface a foam of silvery whiteness. On the right and left, the banks rose over our heads in silent grandeur, as if on the point of detaching their projecting masses into the ravine where we were standing, while below us, the water was visible for about thirty rods, descending in the form of a rapid, when, bending around the point of a projection of the mountain, it disappeared from our view. The spray was so thick as to make a dense cloud, on which the sun, shining with great brilliancy, and being nearly vertical, imprinted a perfect rainbow. This bow, which was not more than eight feet in diameter, formed a circle around us slightly elliptical, near the centre of which we stood. As we approached the fall, the spray thickened, the splendor of the colors increased, and the shrubs, the rocks, and the water, were tinged with its choicest hues. To complete the view, a small rivulet, caused by the late rains, fell about two hundred feet, in the form of a cascade, down the precipice, on the southern bank of the stream, displaying its crystal waters through the green foliage which adorned it. We remained here enjoying the prospect for some minutes, when, drenched with spray, we reluctantly bade it adieu, with all those emotions which the sublimity and beauty of such a scene would naturally awaken.
Catskill Falls.
‘I visited the eastern cascade immediately after viewing the western fall on the Kaaterskill, when the column of water was swollen to eight or ten times its common size, and shall describe it, as it then appeared. The rock over which the water descends, projects in such a manner that the cascade forms part of a parabolic curve. After striking a rock below, it runs down an inclined plane a few rods in length, when it rushes over another precipice of one hundred feet. The column of water remained entire for two thirds the descent, and its surface was covered with a rich sparkling foam, which, as it fell, presented to the eye a brilliant emanation. Here it was broken, and formed a continued succession of showers. Large globules of water, of a soft, pearly lustre, enriched with a prismatic reflection, shot off in tangents to the curve of the cascade, and being drawn by the attraction of gravitation, united again with the stream. The sun, shining through a clear atmosphere, imprinted on it his glittering rays, appearing like a moving column of transparent snow. The spray, rising to the height of several hundred feet, was continually agitated by a strong wind, which gave birth to a number of rainbows. They were elevated one above the other, and increased in brilliancy towards the base of the cascade, where, as well as at the lower fall, an iris spread its arch of glory, tinging the rocks and foliage with its brightest colors.
‘The ground below these cascades continued descending at an angle of forty-five degrees, forming a hollow like an inverted cone, of one thousand feet in depth. This was lined with lofty trees, whose verdant tops, varying from the dark hemlock to the light maple, were bending with the wind. Through this waving forest the cascade appeared at various distances, sparkling with the rays of the sun, and forming a fine contrast to the sombre rocks which surrounded it. From this cavity, at the distance of several miles, a peak rose to an elevation of two thousand feet, while the mountains on the right and left,