America Volume IV Part 3

Or can it mix them with that matchless skill, And lose them in each other, as appears In every bud that blows?"

But after all, the great Adirondack forests, vast and trackless, much of them in their primitive wildness, are to the visitor possibly the grandest of the charms of this weird region. The "Great North Woods"

still exist as the primeval forest on many square miles of these broad mountains and deep valleys, recalling in their solitude and grandeur William Cullen Bryant's _Forest Hymn_:

"The groves were G.o.d's first temples. Ere man learned To hew the shaft and lay the architrave, And spread the roof above them--ere he framed The lofty vault, to gather and roll back The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood, Amidst the cool and silence he knelt down And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks And supplication."

CROSSING THE EMPIRE STATE.

XIII.

CROSSING THE EMPIRE STATE.

The Mohawk Valley -- Cohoes and its Falls -- Occuna's Death -- Erie Ca.n.a.l -- De Witt Clinton -- New York Central Railroad -- Mohawk and Hudson Railroad -- Schenectady -- Union College -- Amsterdam -- Fort Johnson -- Sir William Johnson -- Johnstown -- The Iroquois or Six Nations -- Senecas -- Red Jacket -- Cayugas -- Onondagas -- Oneidas -- Tuscaroras -- Mohawks -- Joseph Brant -- The Noses -- Little Falls -- Herkimer -- Utica -- Cla.s.sic Names -- Rome -- Trenton Falls -- Lake Ontario -- The Lake Ridge -- Black River -- Cazenovia Lake -- Oneida Lake -- Oneida Community -- Oswego River -- Oswego -- Onondaga Lake -- Syracuse -- Salt Making -- Syracuse University -- Otisco Lake -- Skaneateles Lake -- Owasco Lake -- Auburn -- William H.

Seward -- Cayuga Lake -- Ithaca -- Fall Creek -- Cascadilla Creek -- Taghanic Falls -- Cornell University -- Ezra Cornell -- John McGraw -- Seneca Lake -- Havana Glen -- Watkins Glen -- Geneva -- Hobart College -- Seneca River -- Keuka Lake -- Penn Yan -- Hammondsport -- Canandaigua Lake and Town -- Canisteo River -- Hornellsville -- Painted Post -- Corning -- Chemung River -- Elmira -- Genesee River -- Portage Falls -- Genesee Level -- Mount Morris -- Council House of Cascadea -- Geneseo -- Rochester and its Falls -- Sam Patch -- Medina Sandstones -- Lockport -- Chautauqua Lake -- Chautauqua a.s.sembly -- Pennsylvania Triangle -- Erie -- Perry's Victory -- Captain Gridley's Grave -- Dunkirk -- Buffalo -- Sieur de la Salle and the Griffin -- Grain Elevators -- Prospect Park -- Fort Porter -- Fort Erie -- Niagara River -- Grand Island -- Niagara Falls -- Niagara Rapids -- Father Hennepin's Description -- Charles d.i.c.kens -- Professor Tyndall -- Anthony Trollope -- Geological Formation -- Appearance of Niagara -- Goat Island -- Luna Island -- Cave of the Winds -- Terrapin Rocks -- Three Sisters Islands -- The Horseshoe -- Condemned s.h.i.+p Michigan -- Lower Rapids -- Whirlpool -- Niagara Electric Power -- Ma.s.sacre of Devil's Hole -- Battles of Queenston Heights, Chippewa and Lundy's Lane.

THE FALLS AT COHOES.

The valley of the Mohawk River provides one of the best routes for crossing the Empire State, from the Hudson over to Lake Erie. Within sight of the Hudson, the Mohawk pours down its n.o.ble cataract at Cohoes. This is a waterfall of nearly a thousand feet width, the descent being seventy-eight feet. The banks on either side are quite high, with foliage crowning their summits, and between is a perpendicular wall of dark-brown rocks making the cataract, having a sort of diagonal stratification that breaks the sombre face into rifts. In a freshet this is a wonderful fall, the swollen stream becoming a dark amber-colored torrent with adornments of foam, making a small Niagara. The river is dammed about a mile above, so that at times almost the whole current is drawn off to turn the mill-wheels of Cohoes, making paper and manufacturing much wool and cotton, one of its leading establishments being the "Harmony Knitting Mills." In digging for the foundations of its great buildings alongside the river, this corporation several years ago exhumed one of the most perfect skeletons of a mastodon now existing, which is in the State Museum at Albany. Cohoes has about twenty-five thousand population, and its name comes from the Iroquois word Coh-hoes, meaning a "canoe falling." A brisk rapid runs above the falls, and a touching Indian legend tells how the rapid and fall were named. Occuna was a young Seneca warrior (one of the Iroquois tribes), and with his affianced was carelessly paddling in a canoe at the head of the rapid, when suddenly the current drew them down towards the cataract. Escape being impossible, they began the melancholy death-song in responsive chants, and prepared to meet the Great Spirit. Occuna began: "Daughter of a mighty warrior; the Great Manitou calls me hence; he bids me hasten into his presence; I hear his voice in the stream; I see his spirit in the moving of the waters; the light of his eyes danceth upon the swift rapids." The maiden responded, "Art thou not thyself a great warrior, O Occuna? Hath not thy tomahawk been often bathed in the red blood of thine enemies? Hath the fleet deer ever escaped thy arrow, or the beaver eluded thy chase? Why, then, shouldst thou fear to go into the presence of the Great Manitou?" Then said Occuna, "Manitou regardeth the brave, he respecteth the prayer of the mighty! When I selected thee from the daughters of thy mother I promised to live and die with thee. The Thunderer hath called us together. Welcome, O shade of Oriska, invincible chief of the Senecas. Lo, a warrior, and the daughter of a warrior, come to join thee in the feast of the blessed!"

The canoe went over the fall; Occuna was dashed in pieces among the rocks, but the maiden lived to tell the story. The Indians say that Occuna was "raised high above the regions of the moon, from whence he views with joy the prosperous hunting of the warriors; he gives pleasant dreams to his friends, and terrifies their enemies with dreadful omens." Whenever the tribe pa.s.sed the fatal cataract they solemnly commemorated Occuna's death.

THE ERIE Ca.n.a.l.

Just above Cohoes, the Erie Ca.n.a.l crosses the Mohawk upon a stately aqueduct, twelve hundred feet long, and it then descends through the town by an elaborate series of eighteen locks to the Hudson River level. This great water way made the prosperity of New York City, and is the monument of the sagacity and foresight of De Witt Clinton, Governor of New York, who, despite all obstacles, kept advocating and pus.h.i.+ng the work until its completion. The construction began in 1817, and it was opened for business in 1825. The first barge going through had a royal progress from Buffalo, arriving at Albany at three minutes before eleven o'clock on the morning of October 26, 1825. There being no telegraphs, a swift method was devised for announcing her arrival, both back to Buffalo and down the Hudson River to New York. Cannon placed within hearing of each other, at intervals of eight or ten miles, were successively fired, announcing it in both cities, the signal being returned in the same way. By this series of cannon-shots the report went down to New York and came back to Albany in fifty-eight minutes. When the first barges from Buffalo reached New York they were escorted through the harbor by a grand marine procession, which went to the ocean at Sandy Hook, where Governor Clinton poured in a keg of water brought from Lake Erie. The original Erie Ca.n.a.l cost $7,500,000, but it was afterwards enlarged and deepened, and further enlargements are still being made. It is fifty-six feet wide at the bottom and seventy feet at the surface, with seven feet depth of water. The barges are stoutly built and carry cargoes of seven to nine thousand bushels of grain. The ca.n.a.l is three hundred and fifty-five miles long, and gradually descends from Lake Erie five hundred and sixty-eight feet to the tidal level of the Hudson River, there being seventy-two locks pa.s.sed in making the journey. This work, with its feeders and connections with the St.

Lawrence River by the Champlain and Oswego Ca.n.a.ls and the enlargements, has cost New York $98,000,000, and the maintenance costs $1,000,000 a year. It carries a tonnage approximating four millions annually, and is now free of tolls. Usually it carries half the grain coming to New York City. There are various projects for its further enlargement to twelve feet depth to accommodate larger boats, and its future usefulness is a theme of wide discussion. Its route across New York State is naturally the one of easiest gradient, pa.s.sing from Buffalo over the flat plain of Western New York, descending to the lower level of the Genesee Valley, then crossing the plain immediately north of the central lake district of New York, and finally by the Mohawk Valley, getting an easy pa.s.sage through the narrow mountain gorge at Little Falls, and thence alongside that stream to the Hudson.

Closely accompanying the ca.n.a.l, the great Vanderbilt line, the New York Central Railway, crosses New York from Albany to Buffalo. It runs for seventeen miles, from Albany to Schenectady, and then follows up the Mohawk Valley. This seventeen miles of road is probably the oldest steam railroad in the United States--the Mohawk and Hudson Company, chartered in April, 1826. The commissioners organizing it met for the purpose at John Jacob Astor's office in New York City, July 29, 1826, and sent an agent over to England to inquire into its feasibility, and he came back with the plans, and was put in charge at $1500 salary.

This was Peter Fleming, the first manager. The original power was by horses, and afterwards steam was used in daytime only, horses continuing the night work, it not being considered safe to use steam after dark. One car, looking much like an old-fas.h.i.+oned stage-coach, made a train. There were fourteen miles of level line, the remainder being inclined planes, where horses did the most work. When the car approached the station the agent met it, blocking the wheels with a wedge, which was removed when the car started again. As business increased, more cars were added to the trains, and then a guard was put on top of the first car back of the locomotive, to watch the train and see that everything moved right. He frequently notified the engineer to stop when a car was seen bobbing about sufficiently to indicate that it was off the track. This primitive road was the beginning of the New York Central Railroad, which was gradually extended westward.

ASCENDING THE MOHAWK.

Schenectady on the Mohawk is a quaint old town of Dutch foundation, now devoted considerably to hops and b.u.t.ter, and largely to the trade in brooms. The Indians called it Skaunoghtada, or "the village seen across the plain," and hence the name. It was an early outpost of the Patroon at Albany, who sent Arent Van Corlaer to build a fort and trade in furs with the Indians in 1661. There were two horrible ma.s.sacres here in the colonial wars. This comfortable city spreads broadly on the southern bank of the river and has over twenty thousand people. It is the seat of Union College, the buildings, upon a height overlooking the valley, being prominent. The college is part of the foundation of Union University, organized by the cooperation of various religious denominations, embracing medical, law and engineering schools, and also the Dudley Observatory at Albany. Such eminent men as Jonathan Edwards and Eliphalet Nott have been its presidents. Some distance up the Mohawk is Amsterdam, another flouris.h.i.+ng town, and the whole region thereabout is covered with fields of broom-corn, the Mohawk Valley being the greatest producer of brooms in America, and the chief broom-makers the Shakers, who have several settlements here. To the northward of the river above Amsterdam is Fort Johnson, a large stone dwelling which was the home of Sir William Johnson, the noted pioneer and colonial General. In 1738, at the age of twenty-three, he came out from England to manage Admiral Warren's large estates in the Mohawk Valley. He soon became very friendly with the Indians, the Mohawks adopting him as a sachem, and he had much to do with the Indian colonial management. He finally became the superintendent of the affairs of the Indian Six Nations, the Iroquois, and got his t.i.tle of baronet for his victory over the French in 1755 at Fort William Henry, on Lake George. He was in the subsequent campaigns, captured Fort Niagara in 1759, and was present at the surrender of Montreal, and finally of Canada, the next year.

For his services in these important conflicts the King gave him a tract of one hundred thousand acres north of the Mohawk, long known as "Kingsland" or the "Royal Grant." He brought in colonists and started Johnstown on this tract. He was active in his duties as head of the Indian Department, his death in 1774 resulting from over-exertion at an Indian Council. He was the great pioneer of the Mohawk, his influence over the Indians being potential, and his village of Johnstown, about eight miles north of the river, now having about five thousand people. He had a hundred children by many mistresses, both Indian and white, his favorite, by whom he had eight children, being the sister of the famous Mohawk chief, Joseph Brant.

THE LEAGUE OF THE SIX NATIONS.

All this region, and the lands westward beyond the Central Lake District of New York, was the home of that noted Indian Confederation of America which the French named the Iroquois. When the earliest French explorers found them, they were the "Five Nations"--the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas and Mohawks. Their name as a league was Hodenosaunee, meaning "they form a cabin,"--this being their idea of a combination, offensive and defensive, and within their figurative cabin the fire was in the centre at Onondaga, while the Mohawk was the door. They were great warriors, and their tradition was that the Algonquins had driven them from Canada to the south side of Lake Ontario. Subsequently a portion of the Tuscaroras came up from the South, and being admitted to the Confederacy, it became the "Six Nations." They had considerable warlike knowledge. Near Elmira, which is close to the Pennsylvania boundary south of Seneca Lake, their ancient fortifications are still visible, having been located with the skill of a military engineer as a defense against attacks. Fort Hill at Auburn was also an Iroquois fortification that has yielded many relics, and other works constructed by them are shown in various places. The league carried on almost continuous warfare against the neighboring tribes and the frontier colonists, and were conspicuous in all the colonial wars. When in their greatest prosperity they numbered about fifteen thousand, and over ten thousand now exist, being located on Canadian reservations adjacent to the St. Lawrence River, and on eight reservations in New York, where there are about five thousand, in civilized life, chiefly engaged in agriculture. In the ancient league they were ruled by the Council of Sachems of the various tribes, the central council-fire being upon the sh.o.r.e of Onondaga Lake, and the Atotarho, or head sachem of the Onondagas, being chief of the league.

In colonial New York the westernmost tribe was the Senecas, whose hunting-grounds extended from the Central Lake District to Lakes Ontario and Erie. When the Dutch pioneers encountered these Indians they were found to have the almost unp.r.o.nounceable name of "Tsonnundawaonos," meaning the "great hill people," and the nearest the Dutch could come to it was to call them "Sinnekaas," which in time was changed to Senecas. The Quakers took great interest in them, with such fostering care that three thousand Senecas now live on the sixty-six thousand acres in their reservations. They have their own Indian language and special alphabet, and portions of the Scriptures are printed in it. In their days of power they had two famous chiefs--Cornplanter, also called Captain O'Beel, the name of his white father, he being a half-breed, and Red Jacket. The latter lived till 1830 in the Senecas' village near Buffalo. His original Indian name was Otetiani, or "Always Ready," and the popular t.i.tle came from a richly-embroidered scarlet jacket given him by a British officer, which he always had great pride in wearing. He was a leader among the Indians of his time and an impressive orator. Next eastward of the Senecas were the Cayugas, who, when discovered by the French on the banks of their lake, had about three hundred warriors, and in the seventeenth century, under French tutelage, their chiefs became Christians. A remnant of the tribe is in the Indian Territory. The Onondagas were the "men of the mountain," getting their name from the highlands where they lived, south of Onondaga Lake. There are about three hundred now on their reservation and as many more in Canada.

Their language is regarded as the purest of the Iroquois dialects, and its dictionary has been published. Farther eastward, where the granite outcroppings of the southern Adirondack ranges appeared, were the Oneidas, the "tribe of the granite rock," now having on their reservation at Oneida Castle over two hundred, with many more in Wisconsin and Canada. The Tuscaroras came into the league in 1713, and were given a location on the southeastern sh.o.r.e of Oneida Lake, and they are now on a reservation in Western New York, where over three hundred live, with more in Canada. Their name was of modern adoption, after they had a.s.sumed some of the habits of the whites, and means the "s.h.i.+rt-wearers."

The Mohawks lived farther east, in the Mohawk Valley, among the limestone and granitic formations of the Adirondacks and Eastern New York, and they were the Agmaque, meaning "the possessors of the flint." Within the league their name was Ganniagwari, or the "She-Bear," whence the Algonquins called them Mahaque, which the English gradually corrupted into Mohawk, the name being also adopted for their river. The early Dutch settlers at Albany made a treaty with them which was lasting, and the English also had their friends.h.i.+p.

Their most noted chief was Thayendanega, better known as Joseph Brant, who espoused the English cause in the Revolution and held a post in the Canadian Indian Department, his tribe then extending throughout the whole region between the St. Lawrence and the Hudson. He visited England in 1786 and collected money to build a church for his people, and published the Prayer-Book and the Gospel of Mark in Mohawk and English. He steadily exerted himself after the Revolution to maintain peace between the frontier Indians and the United States, being zealously devoted to the welfare of his tribe. He had an estate on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario, where he died in 1807.

LITTLE FALLS AND UTICA.

In ascending the Mohawk valley the distant view is circ.u.mscribed on the south by the Catskills and Helderbergs, and on the north by the Adirondack ranges. The outcrops of the latter compress upon the river in long protruding crags covered with firs and known as the "Noses."

There are various villages, started in the eighteenth century as frontier posts among the Indians. There are also hop-fields in plenty and much pasture, and finally the hills become higher and the valley narrower as Little Falls is reached, where the Mohawk forces a pa.s.sage through a spur of the Adirondacks, known as the Rollaway. The river, approaching the gorge, sharply bends from east to south, and plunges wildly down a series of rapids, the town being set among the rocky precipices right in the throat of the defile. The place is heaped with rocks, the stream falling forty-two feet within a thousand yards, the descent forming three separate cataracts, which give power to numerous mills on the banks and cl.u.s.tering upon an island in the rapids. They make cheese and paper, and on either hand precipitous crags rise five hundred feet above them. The pa.s.s is very narrow, compressing the Erie Ca.n.a.l and the New York Central and West Sh.o.r.e Railways closely upon the river; in fact, the ca.n.a.l pa.s.sage has been blasted out of the solid granite on the southern river-bank. Here can be readily studied the crystalline rocks of the Laurentian formation, which are described as "part of the oldest dry land on the face of the globe." It is this pa.s.s through the mountains, made by the Mohawk, that gives the Erie Ca.n.a.l and the Vanderbilt railways their low-level route between the Atlantic seaboard and the West. All the other trunk railways climb the Allegheny ranges and cross them at elevations of two thousand feet or more, while here the elevation is not four hundred feet, thus avoiding steep gradients and expensive hauling. The Rollaway stretches for a long distance, clothed to its summit with pines and birches.

Beyond, the amber waters of Canada Creek flow in from the north, giving the Mohawk a largely increased current, and the land becomes a region of gentle hills, with meadows and herds, a scene of pastoral beauty, the great dairy region of New York. Here is Herkimer, which was an Indian frontier fort, and a few miles farther is Utica, the dairymen's and cheese-makers' headquarters, a city of fifty thousand people. The whole Mohawk valley for miles has an atmosphere of peacefulness and content, innumerable cows and sheep grazing and resting upon the rich pastures. The river is narrow and meanders slowly past Utica, which is built to the southward along the banks of the ca.n.a.l. This city also grew up around an Indian border post.

General Schuyler, who came westward from Albany, seeking trade, built Fort Schuyler here in 1758, the grant of land being known as Cosby's Manor. Then a block-house was built, but the settlement, known as Old Fort Schuyler, grew very little until after the ca.n.a.l was opened.

Utica had the honor of producing two of the leading men of New York, Roscoe Conkling and Horatio Seymour, the latter having been Governor of New York and the Democratic candidate for President when General Grant was first elected in 1868. The city rises gradually upon a gentle slope south of the Mohawk, until it reaches one hundred and fifty feet elevation, Genesee street, the chief highway, wide and attractive, extending back from the river and across the ca.n.a.l, bordered by elegant residences, fronted by lawns and fine shade trees.

Its leading public inst.i.tution is the State Lunatic Asylum, but its pride is the regulation of the b.u.t.ter and cheese trades of New York.

In journeying through New York, it is noticed that there is an ambitious nomenclature. The towns are given cla.s.sic names, as if there had been an early immigration of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Thus we were at Troy on the Hudson, and coming up the Mohawk have pa.s.sed Fonda, Palatine bridge and Ilion on the route to Utica, while farther on are Rome and Verona. It seems that in the primitive days of New York old Simeon de Witt was the Surveyor General, and under his auspices the remorseless college graduate is said to have wandered over the country with instrument and map and scattered broadcast cla.s.sic names. These flourish most in Western New York. Albion and Attica, Corfu and Palmyra, are near neighbors there, the latter being chiefly known to fame as the place where the original Mormon apostle, "Joe Smith," claimed to have found the sacred golden plates of the Mormon bible and the stone spectacles through which he interpreted the signs written upon them. Memphis is near by, and Macedon and Jordan are adjacent villages. Pompey, Virgil and Ulysses are named up, and Ovid is between Lakes Seneca and Cayuga, with Geneva at the foot of Seneca and Ithaca at the head of Cayuga. Auburn--"loveliest village of the plain"--is to the eastward, and Aurelius, Marcellus and Camillus are railway stations on the route to Syracuse, one of whose former names was Corinth. To the southward is Homer, having Nineveh and Manlius near by; Venice is not far away, and Babylon is down on Long Island. The Mohawk thus heads in cla.s.sic ground, rising in the highlands of Oneida about twenty miles north of Rome, past which it flows a small and winding brook through the almost level country.

Rome, unlike its ancient namesake, has no hills at all, but is built upon a plain, having grown up around the Indian frontier outpost of Fort Stanwix of the Revolution, the battle of Oriskany, in August, 1777, which cut off the reinforcements going to Burgoyne at Saratoga, thus helping to defeat him, having been fought just outside its limits. There are about seventeen thousand people in Rome, which is a prominent lumber market, being at the junction of the Erie and Black River Ca.n.a.ls, the latter fetching lumber down from Canada, which has come through Lake Ontario. From Rome the narrow Mohawk flows to Utica, and thence with broadening current onward to the Hudson, its whole length being about one hundred and forty miles. Its gentle course and pastoral beauty remind of the pleasant lines of that poet of nature, John Dyer:

"And see the rivers how they run Through woods and meads, in shade and sun, Sometimes swift, sometimes slow,-- Wave succeeding wave, they go A various journey to the deep, Like human life to endless sleep!"

TRENTON FALLS.

In the hills north of Utica, the West Canada Creek cuts its remarkable gorge at Trenton Falls. It is a vigorous stream, rising in the western slopes of the Adirondacks and flowing to the Mohawk. In getting down through the limestone rocks from the highlands to the plain adjacent to the river, it pa.s.ses into the ravine, giving a magnificent display of chasms, cascades and rapids, in a gorge of such amazing construction that it is regarded as a wonder second only to Niagara.

During the ages, the torrent has cut through over four hundred layers of the stratified limestone, exposing the geological formation to full view, with the fossil organic remains deposited there as the world was built. In descending the ravine, there are five prominent cataracts, besides rapids, all compressed within two miles distance, the aggregate descent being three hundred and twelve feet. This wonderful gorge was the Indian Kauy-a-hoo-ra, or the "Leaping Water," and from its color they called the stream Kahnata, the "amber water," a name readily corrupted into Canada Creek. The Dutch called the place after the Grand Pensioner of Holland, Oldenbarneveld, he having sent out the first colonists under a grant known as the "Holland Patent." It was in this region Grover Cleveland spent his early life. A grandson of Roger Sherman, who had charge of the Unitarian church here, is regarded as the discoverer of the ravine in 1805, and he did much to make it known to the world. His grave is within sound of the Sherman Fall.

Entering the chasm at the lower end, where the stream pa.s.ses out from the rock terrace to the plain, the ravine is found to be about one hundred feet deep, the almost perpendicular rocky walls built up in level layers as if by hands, the well-defined separate strata being from one inch to a foot in thickness, and narrowest at the bottom.

Hemlocks and cedars crown the blackened rocks, their branches hanging over the abyss, while far below, the boisterous torrent rushes across the pavement of broad flagstones forming its bed. Descending to the bottom, the impression is like being in a deep vault, this subterranean world disclosing operations lasting through ages, during which the rocks have slowly yielded to the resistless power of the water and frost that has gradually cut the chasm. Fossils and petrifactions found in the deepest strata are trod upon, and each thin layer of the walls, one imposed upon the other, shows the deposit of a supervening flood happening successively, yet eternity only knows how long ago. And ages afterwards the torrent came, and during more successive ages carved out the gorge, until it has penetrated to the bottom of the limestone.

The torrent flows briskly out of the long and narrow vault, while some distance above is the lowest of the series of cataracts--the Sherman Fall--where the water plunges over a parapet of rock forty feet high into a huge basin it has worked out. The amber-colored waters boil furiously in this cauldron. Above the Sherman Fall the stream flows through rapids, the chasm broadening and the lofty walls rising higher as the hill-tops are more elevated, mounting to two hundred feet above the torrent at a lofty point called the Pinnacle. The floor of the ravine is level, and becomes quite wide, with ma.s.sive slabs, weighing tons, resting upon it, showing the power of freshets which bring them down from above, and will ultimately carry them completely through the gorge to its outlet, so resistless is the sweep of the raging flood at such times, when every bound these huge stones make over the rocky floor causes the neighboring hills to vibrate, the stifled thunder of their progress being heard above the roar of waters. At the head of this widened gorge is the High Falls, in a grand amphitheatre, the cataract broken into parts and combining all the varieties of cascade and waterfall, being one hundred feet high, and the walls of the chasm rising eighty feet higher to the surface of the land above, which keeps on rising as the ends of the limestone strata are surmounted.

The top of this High Fall is another perpendicular wall stretching diagonally across the chasm, and below it the protruding layers of rock form a sort of huge stairway. Down this the waters fall in varying fas.h.i.+on, finally condensing as a ma.s.s of whirling, s.h.i.+fting foam into a dark pool beneath. This splendid cataract is fringed about with evergreens and shrubbery, for between the dark thin slabs of limestone are inserted thinner strata of crumbling shale, and these give root-hold to the cedars and other nodding branches clinging to the walls of the ravine. The waterfall begins at the top with the color of melted topaz, and is unlike anything elsewhere seen, for the hemlocks and spruces of the mountain regions impart the amber hue to the torrent. Descending, the changing tints become steadily lighter, until the brown turns to a creamy white, which is finally lost under the cloud of spray at the foot of the lower stairway slide, while beyond, the water rushes away black in hue and driving forward almost as if shot from a cannon.

Above is another great amphitheatre, floored with rocky layers, upon which the stream flows in gentler course. In this is the Milldam Fall, a ledge about fourteen feet high, over which the waters make a uniform flow all across the ravine. This has above it an expanded platform of level slabs almost a hundred feet wide, fringed on each side with cedars, the attractive place being called the Alhambra. At the upper end a naked rock protrudes about sixty feet high, from which a stream falls as a perpetual shower-bath. The creek rushes down another complex stairway in the Alhambra Cascade. The ravine above suddenly contracts, and the walls beyond change their forms into shapes of curves and projections. Another cascade of whirling, foaming waters is pa.s.sed, and a new amphitheatre entered, where great slabs of rock have fallen from the walls and lie on the floor, ready to be driven down the ravine by freshets. The torrent here develops another curious formation, known as the Rocky Heart. Curved holes are being rounded out by whirling boulders of granite, which are kept constantly revolving by the running water, and thus readily act upon the softer limestones. The chasm goes still farther up to the Prospect Falls, a cataract twenty feet high, near the beginning of the ravine.

Canada Creek pa.s.ses out of the lower end of the gorge, where the limestone layers are exhausted, and their edges fall off in terraces sharply to the lower level, and almost down to the surface of the stream. All about the broadened channel, as it flows away towards the Mohawk, lie the huge slabs and boulders driven down through the chasm by repeated freshets, with the amber waters foaming among them. This wonderful ravine is a geological mine, disclosing the transition rocks, the first containing fossil organic remains. In the lower part of the chasm they are compact carbonate of lime, extremely hard and brittle, and a dark blue, almost black, in color. At the High Fall, and above to the Rocky Heart, the upper strata are from twelve to eighteen inches thick, and composed of the crystallized fragments of the vertebrae of crinoidea and the sh.e.l.ls of terebratulae. These fossils of the Silurian period are numerous. The strata throughout the chasm are remarkably horizontal, varying, as they ascend, from one inch to eighteen inches in thickness. They are very distinct, and separated by a fine shaly substance which disintegrates upon exposure to the air or moisture. From the top to the bottom of the ravine small cracks extend down perpendicularly, and run in a straight line through the whole ma.s.s across the stream. These divide the pavements into rhomboidal slabs. The most interesting fossils are found, among them the large trilobite, a crustacean that could both swim and crawl upon the bottom of the sea. This extraordinary place is in reality a t.i.tanic fissure, cracked through the crust of mother earth, down which roars and dashes a tremendous torrent.

THE LAKES OF NEW YORK.

The northwestern boundary of the State of New York is formed by Lake Ontario, of which the St. Lawrence River is the outlet, flowing northeastward into Canada. Ontario is the smallest and the lowest in level of the group of Great Lakes, its name given by the Indians meaning the "beautiful water." It is about one hundred and eighty miles long, and its surface is two hundred and thirty-one feet above tide, but it is fully five hundred feet deep, so that it has more depth below the ocean level than the lake surface is above. It has a marked feature along its southern sh.o.r.e, where a narrow elevation known as the "Lake Ridge" extends nearly parallel with the edge of the lake, and from four to eight miles distant. The height of this ridge usually exceeds one hundred and sixty feet above the lake level, and in some places is nearly two hundred feet, and it is, throughout, from five to twenty feet above the immediate surface of the land, there being a width at the summit of some thirty feet, from which the ground slopes away on both sides. This ridge is regarded as an ancient sh.o.r.e-line formed by the waters of the lake, and the chief public highway on the southern side of the lake is laid for many miles along its summit. The main tributaries of Ontario from New York are the Black, Oswego and Genesee Rivers. The Black River gathers various streams draining the western slopes of the Adirondacks, and its name comes from the dark amber hue of the waters. It flows northwest through a forest-covered region, pours down Lyons Falls, a fine cataract of seventy feet, pa.s.ses the manufacturing towns of Lowville and Watertown, and finally discharges by the broadened estuary of Black River Bay into the east end of Lake Ontario. From Rome, on the Mohawk, a ca.n.a.l is constructed northward to the Black River.

Westward from Rome the land is an almost level plain, rising into the Onondaga highlands to the southward. Cazenovia Lake, among these hills, sends its outlet northward over the plain to Oneida Lake. There are various little lakelets between, but the ground is impregnated with sulphur, so that their waters are bitter, and one is consequently named Lake Sodom. Oneida is a large lake, twenty-three miles long and several miles broad, with low and marshy sh.o.r.es. In the fertile dairy region to the southeastward is located the "Inspiration Community" of Oneida, founded in 1847 by John Humphrey Noyes, a Vermont preacher. In 1834, when twenty-three years old, he experienced what he called a "second conversion," and announced himself a "perfectionist." He preached his new faith and finally established the Oneida Community for its demonstration, with about three hundred members. They maintain the perfect equality of women with men in all social and business relations, and have become quite wealthy as manufacturers, farmers and dairymen. The outlet of Oneida Lake, and in fact the outlet streams of all the lakes of Central New York, discharge into Oswego River, which flows northward into Lake Ontario. Oswego means "the small water flowing into that which is large," and the port at its mouth, noted for its flour and starch-mills, has about twenty-five thousand people, and is the largest city on the New York sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario. This was an early French settlement in the seventeenth century, when the river was known by them as the "river of the Onondagas."

The great plain south of Lake Ontario, which is believed to have been itself formerly a lake bed, rises into highlands farther southward, and the noted group of lakes of Central New York are scattered in the valleys which are deeply fissured into these highlands. Most of these lakes are long and narrow, and they nestle in almost parallel valleys, their waters occupying the bottoms of deep ravines. These lakes present much fine scenery, and their sh.o.r.es are among the most attractive parts of New York. They display vineyards and fruit orchards and extensive pastures, and their present names are the original t.i.tles given them by the Iroquois, many of whom still live on reservations near them. Southwest of Oneida is Onondaga Lake, and farther west Skaneateles and Owasco. Then beyond is the larger Cayuga Lake, and to the westward Seneca, the largest of the group, sixty miles long, elevated two hundred feet above Lake Ontario, and of great depth, estimated to exceed six hundred feet. This lake was never known to be frozen over but once, and that was late in March many years ago; steamboats traverse it every day in the year. Cayuga Lake is of similar character, but of slightly less size and elevation, and in some places is so deep as to be almost unfathomable. These parallel lakes are separated by an elevated ridge only a few miles wide, and their great depth, descending much below the level of Ontario, into which they discharge, gives evidence to the geologists that their waters originally drained to the southward. Westward of Seneca is Keuka or the Crooked Lake, the Indian name meaning "the lake of the Bended Elbow." It is a pretty sheet of water, having an angle in its centre, from which starts out another long and narrow branch, so that its spreading arms make it look much like the aboriginal signification. It is elevated two hundred and seventy-seven feet above the level of Seneca Lake, which is only seven miles away.

Beyond Keuka is Canandaigua Lake, the westernmost of the group.

THE SYRACUSE SALT-MAKERS.

Onondaga Lake is comparatively small, being six miles long and about a mile broad, and it is noted for its salt wells, which have made the prosperity of the city of Syracuse, the largest in Central New York, built along Onondaga Creek south of the lake, and upon the slopes of the higher hills to the eastward. An Indian trader started the town in the eighteenth century, and soon afterwards Asa Danforth began making salt at Salt Point on the lake, calling his village Salina. When the Erie Ca.n.a.l came along the place grew rapidly, and it is now a great ca.n.a.l and railroad centre, with lines radiating in various directions, and from it the Oswego Ca.n.a.l goes northward to Lake Ontario. The city has a population approximating a hundred thousand. The salt springs come out of the rocks of the Upper Silurian period, and are located chiefly in the marshes bordering Onondaga Lake. The brine wells are bored in the lowlands surrounding the lake to a depth of two hundred to over three hundred feet. The State of New York controls the wells and pumps the brine to supply the evaporating works, which are private establishments, a royalty of one cent per bushel being charged. The main impurity that has to be driven out of the brine is sulphate of lime, and the finer product has a high reputation, the "Onondaga Factory-Filled Salt" being greatly esteemed. The salt wells were known to the Indians, and the French Jesuit missionaries found them as early as 1650, taking salt back to Canada. In 1789 they yielded five hundred bushels, and they have since produced as high as nine millions of bushels a year, the annual product now being about three millions. The brine is first pumped into small shallow vats, where it remains until the carbonic acid gas escapes and the iron is deposited as an oxide.