Blair Collection > Celtic magazine > Volume 5

THE EDITOR IN CANADA, 357
into the boiling caldron belo"w. No human being can give, or form,
any adequate idea of the mighty and uncontrollable powers here at work.
They are simply immeasurable, and if any power on earth can be con-
ceived almighty here it is. The actual height of the Fall is not very much,
and, excepting the channel cut by the water in the solid rock, the sur-
rounding country is tame, not for a moment to be compared with
the neighbourhood of the Falls of Foyers. The Fall is slowly but surely
working its way higher up the stream. Within the last three years,
thousands of tons of solid rock have been torn or worn out of the middle
of the Horse Shoe Fall by the irresistible volume of water which rushes
over it to the tune of one hundred million tons per hour. The gap made
by the removal of this vast quantity of rock has very much altered the
appearance and marred the gracefulness of the cataract.
It has been computed that the friction of the water wears the solid
rock and carries the Fall further back at the rate of a foot per annum,
with the result that it has receded from Queenstown, seven miles
down the river, to its present position. A simple calculation will show
that this would take about forty thousand years.
"Walking up close to the end of the Horse Shoe Fall I was much
pressed by interested parties to go down the face of the precipitous rock
which formed the river bank, in an elevator, and get under the cataract.
I declined ; for I felt that I had only one life, and, apart from my own
enjoyment of it, I could not forget that others had an interest in it,
so I decided to take care of it. Further, I did not like to be sold, and
I had my suspicions that it would have been 4s thrown away. I went
in to the hotel close by, and a fellow, recognising the peaty flavour of my
accent, attacked me in excellent Gaelic, strongly advising me to go. He
had, he told me, a great difficulty to get Wilkie Collins to descend, who
at last agreed, on condition that my Gaelic friend should accompany
him. He did : and " Wilkie Collins exclaimed on getting under the
FaU, that it was the grandest thing he ever saw, and that after beino'
there he could never question the existence of a Supreme Being." I in-
formed my Celtic friend that I required no new evidence on that score,
and that, if I did, I could not exactly see how it was to be found in the
fact of water tumbling down a precipice ; if it had been going the other
way — up the hUl, in defiance of the laws of gravitation, something might
be said in favour of the evidence which proved sufficient to satisfy Wilkie
CoUins. The Highlander considered me a bad subject, and no doubt
somewhat heretical, and suggested that I should take the opinion of a
gentleman who had just come up from visiting the lower regions. I did
so, and he told me, much to the chagrin of my Gaehc countryman, that
the whole thing was a sell — not worth a shilling. In fact, that he did
not get under the Fall at all, but under a little drizzle that fell over the
side of the rock. The Highlander was positively disgusted, after wasting
aU his Celtic eloquence on such an unimpressionable and unprofitable
subject. I walked back and crossed the new suspension bridge, with my
new-made friend, to the American side. The charge for crossing was 20
cents, but my companion, who came from the Yankee side earlier in the
day, took a return ticket, on the recommendation of the official at the
other end of the bridge, for which he paid, as a great favour ! for the
double journey, 50 cents, while it would have only cost him 25 for a