"Returning to the road, we ride the last half mile, ascending gradually till we come to the public house. A foot path through the garden at the back of the house, and down a steep and thickly wooded bank, brings us upon Table Rock, a flat ledge of limestone, forming the brink of the precipice, the upper stratum of which is a jagged shelf no more than about a foot in thickness, jutting out over the gulf below. Here the whole scene breaks upon us. Looking up the river we face the grand crescent, called the British or Horse-shoe Fall. Opposite to us is Goat Island, which divides the Falls, and lower down to the left is the American Fall.

"And what is the first impression upon the beholder? Decidedly I should say that of beauty; of sovereign majestic beauty it is true, but still that of beauty, soul-filling beauty, rather than of awful sublimity.

"Every thing is on so large a scale; the height of the cataract is so much exceeded by its breadth, and so much concealed by the volumes of mist which wrap and shroud its feet; you stand so directly on the same level with the falling waters; you see so large a portion of them at a considerable distance from you; and their roar comes up so moderated from the deep abyss, that the loveliness of the scene at first sight is permitted to take precedence of its grandeur.

"Its colouring alone is of the most exquisite kind. The deep sea green of the centre of the crescent, where it is probable the greatest mass of water falls, lit up with successive flashes of foam, and contrasted with the rich

creamy whiteness of the two sides or wings of the same crescent; then the sober grey of the opposite precipice of Goat Island, crowned with the luxuriant foliage of its forest trees, and connected still further on with the pouring snows of the greater and less American Falls; the agitated and foamy surface of the waters at the bottom of the Falls, followed by the darkness of their hue as they sweep along through the perpendicular gorge beyond; the mist, floating about, and veiling objects with a softening indistinctness; and the bright rainbow which is constant to the sun, altogether form a combination of colour, changing too with every change of light, every variation of the wind, and every hour of the day, which the painter's art cannot imitate, and which nature herself has perhaps only effected here.

"And the motion of these Falls, how wonderfully fine it is! how graceful, how stately, how calm! There is nothing in it hurried or headlong, as you might have supposed. The eye is so long in measuring the vast and yet unacknowledged height, that they seem to move over almost slowly; the central and most voluminous portion of the Horse-shoe even goes down silently. The truth is that pompous phrases cannot describe these Falls. Calm and deeply meaning words should alone be used in speaking of them. Any thing like hyperbole would degrade them, if they could be degraded. But they cannot be. Neither the words nor the deeds of man degrade or disturb them. There they pour over in their collected might and dignified flowing, steadily, constantly, as they

always have been pouring since they came from the hollow of His hand, and you can add nothing to them, nor can you take any thing from them."

The Dropping Well, at Knaresborough, in Yorkshire, is the most famous of all the petrifying waters in England. It drops from a porous rock, and the ground upon which it has fallen, for twelve yards long, is now changed into solid stone. A little rivulet, that runs from this well, falls into the Nid, where it has formed a rock that stretches some vards into the river.

THE ROARING CASCADE, JAMAICA.

In St. Anne's Parish, Jamaica, is a very remarkable cat

aract formed by the White River, which is of considerable magnitude, and, after a course of about twelve miles among the mountains, precipitates itself in a fall of three hundred feet. The fall gradually widens in its descent until it reaches the bottom, where it forms a beautiful circular basin, and then flows away in a winding course towards the sea. Through the whole descent it is broken and interrupted by regular steps, incrusted over a kind of soft chalky stone, which yields easily to the chisel.

So vast a discharge of water, widely broken and agitated by the steepness of the fall, dashing and foaming from step to step, exhibits a pleasing and a sublime scene. It is much swollen by the supplies it receives during the rainy season, and its grandeur is at that time much heightened. The roaring of the flood, the tumultuous violence of the torrent, echoing from cliff to cliff; the gloom of the overhanging wood, contrasted with the serene softness of the sky, the silver glitter of the spray, and the smooth surface of the basin below, form altogether an assemblage of objects, the most happily mingled. and beyond the power of painting to express.

THE GEYSER, OR BOILING SPRING.

Among the boiling springs in the neighborhood of Mount Hecla in Iceland, none is more wonderful than the Geyser. This rises in the midst of other springa, near to the hills. The water boils with a loud rumbling noise in a well of an irregular form, about six feet in its great

est diameter. From thence it bursts forth into the air, and subsides again nearly every minute. The jets are dashed into spray as they rise, and are from twenty to thirty feet high. Volumes of steam or vapour ascend with them, and produce a most magnificent effect.

The jets are forced in rising to take an oblique direction, by two or three stones which lie on the edge of the basin. Between these and the hill, a distance of eight or nine feet, the ground is remarkably hot, and entirely bare of vegetation. If the earth is stirred, a stream instantly rises, and in some places it is covered with a thin coat of sulphur. In one place near it, there is a white dust on the surface of the soil, which by the taste