current, was able to descend the falls without grazing. Towards the Canadian shore the whirlpool, on the contrary, looks like metal shining beneath the luminous rays, and it is melted gold which is now poured into the gulf. Below, the river is invisible from the vapours which rise over it. I caught glimpses, however, of enormous blocks of ice accumulated by the cold of winter; they take the form of monsters, which, with open jaws, hourly absorb the hundred millions of tons poured into them by the inexhaustible Niagara. Half a mile below the cataract the river again became tranquil, and presented a smooth surface, which the winds of April had not yet been able to ruffle.
"And now for the middle of the torrent," said the Doctor to me.
I could not imagine what the Doctor meant by those words, until he pointed to a tower built on the edge of a rock some hundred feet from the shore, almost overhanging the precipice. This monument, raised in 1833, by a 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
