NIAGARA FALLS, the grandest cataract in the world, belong in part to the state of New York. Here the water of the great lakes, west of Ontario, is poured over a precipitous cliff about 160 feet high in two immense sheets, called the American and Horseshoe falls, separated by Goat Island. These falls received the name Niagara from the aborigines, Ni-a-ga-ra meaning the "thunder of waters." The roar created by the fall can be heard, under favorable conditions, at a distance of fifteen miles. There are three distinct falls. The Horseshoe fall, so named on account of its crescent shape, is the largest, covering a distance of 2,000 feet and having a fall of 154 feet; the American fall, 660 feet, and the Central fall, 243 feet in width, each have a fall of 163 feet. The volume of water is perpetually the same, no amount of rain or snow making any apparent change. This is conceded to be the grandest natural feature in the world, providing a water power the limit of which is incalculable.

Many of our readers have visited the falls in the summer season and doubtless all of them have read descriptions of them, more or less disappointing; everyone is familiar with the numberless photographs and engravings that have been made of them. Of course, no adequate idea of them has ever been given to the imagination. The writer has seen them many times and must confess to a want of sympathy with that feeling of wonder and bewilderment which many people claim to experience when first beholding them. It would be interesting to compile a list, if it could be done, of exclamations made on first viewing Lake Erie, as it really is, tumbling over a gigantic cliff. Charles Dickens is reported to have been unable to utter a word for many seconds, and there does not appear to be an adjective of sufficient potentiality to hold the idea of its majesty. And yet there are falls greater than these in the world. Dr. Livingstone, alluding to Victoria Falls in Central Africa, declared that of all the wonders of the lands he had visited he had seen no such stupendous spectacle as they. The chasm into which a mile-wide sheet of water plunges has been plumbed to twice the depth of Niagara.

The Niagara River is the channel by which all the waters of the lakes flow toward the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It has a total descent of 330 feet. The interruption to navigation occasioned by the rapid descent of the Niagara River is overcome on the Canadian side by the Welland Canal; on the American side the communication between tide-water and the upper lakes was first effected by the Erie Canal. The river flows in a northerly direction with a swift current for the first two miles and then more gently, with a widening current, which divides as a portion passes on each side of Goat Island. As these unite below the island the stream spreads out, about two or three miles in width, and appears like a quiet lake studded with small, low islands. About sixteen miles from Lake Erie the river grows narrow and begins to descend with great velocity. This is the commencement of the rapids, which continue for about a mile, the water falling in this distance about fifty-two feet. The stream terminates below in a great cataract. At this point the river, making a curve from west to north, spreads out to an extreme width of 4,750 feet. Goat Island, which extends down to the brink of the cataract, occupies one-fourth of this space, leaving the river on the American side about 1,100 feet wide and on the Canadian side about double this width. A cave, called the Cave of the Winds, is formed behind the fall, into which, on the Canadian side, persons can enter and pass by a rough and slippery path toward Goat Island. As already stated, there are many cataracts which descend from greater heights. The sublimity of Niagara is in the vast power displayed by a mighty current flowing down the long rapids and finally plunging in one uniform sheet into the abyss below. Dangerous as it appears, the river is here crossed by small rowboats. For seven miles below the falls the narrow gorge continues, varying in width from 200 to 400 yards. The river then emerges at Lewiston, N. Y., having descended 104 feet from the foot of the cataract. A suspension bridge was constructed in 1855 by Mr. Roebling, for the passage of railway trains, and eighteen feet below the railway it also sustains a carriage and foot track. From this bridge a fine view is had of the falls. Other bridges have since been built, among them a cantilever.

Geologists say that the gorge through which the Niagara River flows below the falls bears evidence of having been excavated by the river itself. Within the present century changes have taken place by the falling down of masses of rock, the effect of which has been to cause a slight recession of the cataract and extend the gorge to the same distance upward toward Lake Erie. Table Rock, once a striking feature of the falls, has wholly disappeared. Father Hennepin made a sketch of the falls in 1678, a facsimile of which shows that many striking features have disappeared. In 1750 the falls were visited by Kalm, a Swedish naturalist, whose description of Niagara was published in 1751. He alludes to a rock having fallen down a few years previous and indicates the spot in his sketch. Lyell estimates the retrocession of the falls to be about a foot a year.

Of late years the extraordinary power of the falls has been adapted to the production of electricity, which has been distributed to various cities and towns within a radius of 100 miles. Street cars and machinery of every kind are run by them, and, by new devices and more powerful dynamos, it is believed the field for the successful utilization of this great force is almost without limit.