NIAGARA, a river in North America forming a portion of the great lake and river system known as the St Lawrence (q.v.'), flows northward from Lake Erie (573 feet above sea-level) to Lake Ontario, separating the State of New York from the province of Ontario in Canada, and within the 33 miles of its course makes a total descent of 328 feet. On issuing from Lake Erie the river is only about three-fourths of a mile broad, and for the first two miles is somewhat swift; it then divides and passes round Grand Island, broadens and assumes the tranquillity of a lake until the commencement of the rapids, where it suddenly narrows and makes a descent of about 52 feet in the mile before its hurried and troubled waters are precipitated over a lofty chasm forming falls of unexampled grandeur. The breadth of the river immediately before making the leap is 4750 feet, but the centre is occupied by Goat Island, rising about 40 feet above the water, and occupying a breadth of about 1000 feet, a distance of about 1400 feet separating it from the American side and about double that distance from the Canadian side, while the length of the verge line between the island and the Canadian side is moreover increased by an inward horseshoe curve. The height of the fall on the American side is about 164 feet, and on the Canadian side about 150 feet; the discharge is about 18,000,000 cubic feet per minute. Tha waters plunge into an abyss about 1000 feet wide, and during the next seven miles make a descent of about 104 feet through a deep ravine with perpendicular banks rising-to a height of from 200 to 350 feet, the breadth of the river varying from 250 to 400 yards. Three miles below the great falls the whirlpool rapids are formed by a sudden turn in the channel causing the waters to impinge ...against the Canadian shore, where they have made a deep indentation, and to rush back to the American side in a great whirl or eddy, rendered more furious by the uneven bed of the river, and the narrow space into which it contracts. After issuing from the gorge at Lewiston the river enters on a tranquil course, which continues to Lake Ontario. The point where the gorge ceases marks the termination of a table-land in an escarpment facing northwards; and it has been generally held that the falls were situated here at the time when the river first began to flow, that is, subsequently to the great Ice Age. Recent study has suggested a much more complicated theory, making a great part of the gorge older than the Ice Age, and thus reducing the period for which the modern river has flowed from several hundred thousands of years to one-tenth of that time. The rate of recession is very uncertain; while it would appear from the best maps that some parts have receded at least 100 feet since 1841, others have remained more or less· stationary. At the present site of the falls the edge of the cataract is formed by strata of hard limestone reaching to a depth of about 80 feet; and by the action of the spray the softer shaly strata below have been hollowed out so as to form the “Cave of Winds,” which may be entered from the Canadian side. The river is crossed by a suspension bridge for foot passengers, about 250 yards below tho falls, and a mile and a half farther down by two railway bridges about a hundred yards apart,—one of which has a carriage way 18 feet below; the other, a cantilever bridge, completed in December 1883, carries a double line of rails.
The name Niagara (“thunder of waters”) is the invention of an Indian tribe who adopted it as their own designation, from the fact that it was descriptive of the remarkable natural phenomenon situated within their territory. This tribe, on account of their peaceful proclivities, were also called the Neuter Nation; but, to avoid the fury of the Iroquois, they finally joined them in 1723 against the Hurons, and from this time they ceased to exist as a separate tribe. The first printed allusion to the cataract is in the record of a voyage by Jacques Cartier in 1535. Its position was first mentioned by Samuel Champlain in a map attached to his voyages published in 1613. The earliest description is that by Father Hennepin, who visited it in 1678, and published an account of it accompanied with a sketch giving a view of a third fall on the north side caused by the presence of a large rock on Table Rock. The rock and cascade are mentioned by Kalm the Swedish naturalist, who visited Niagara in 1750, but they had disappeared a few years previously. Some writers indeed mention as many as six falls, and there can at least be no doubt that within the last two hundred years the aspect of the falls has been greatly altered. Goat Island extended, up to a comparatively recent period, for about another half mile northerly in a triangular prolongation; and the number of small islands was perhaps larger than at present. Large masses fell in 1818, 1828, 1843, and 1847, and in June 1850 Table Rock disappeared.
See Sir Charles Lyell, Travels in North America, 1845; George W. Holley, Niagara, 1880; paper by Professor Tyndall on “Niagara” in Macmillan’s Magazine, vol. xxviii. (May 1873); paper by G. W. Holley in Scribner's Magazine (August 1876); Dr Julius Pohlmann, Life History of the Niagara River, 1883.
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