August 2d, Thursday. Messrs. Morris and Van Rensselaer arrived here from Chippeway, and after breakfast at Mr. Barton's, we all proceeded to a village near the Falls of Niagara, along the carrying road where Judge Porter resides. On the top of the slope at Lewiston, we observed the old way in which the French drew up their goods. A crane was fixed on the hill, and an inclined plane down the descent in which sleighs were fixed, and as goods were conveyed up in one sleigh, others were let down in another. After two miles we saw the Devil's Hole, which is a monstrous chasm or ravine, close to the road, and is 150 feet deep, where the hill is upwards of 300 feet perpendicular above the center of the river. It is formed by a small creek, called Bloody Run, precipitating itself into the bank. This name is derived from this circumstance: After the capture of Niagara by Sir William Johnson, an escort of thirty wagons were driven down the precipice by an ambuscade of French and Indians, and all killed except two - one who broke through the enemy, and the other who was caught by a tree in his descent, and although miserably wounded, is yet alive and tells the story. Two miles from this place, we saw, from Major Brother's house, the whirlpool, which exhibits the power of water in the most astonishing manner. When the largest trees of the forest are caught in the vortex of this fresh water maelstrom, such is the fury of its vertiginous motion, that they are whirled round with inconceivable velocity, and after being precipitated into the great abyss of waters, and lost to the eye for a considerable time, they are ejected in fragments from their prison, or entirely demolished. We arrived at the village, one-quarter of a mile above the Falls, and three-quarters of a-mile from Fort Schlosser. It was established by Porter, Barton, & Co., and is the best place in the world for hydraulic works. Here is a carding-machine, a grist-mill, a saw-mill, a ropewalk, a bark-mill, a tannery, Post office, tavern, and a few houses. An acre-lot sells for fifty dollars. The rope-walk is sixty fathoms long; is the only establishment of the kind in the western country, and already supplies all the lake navigation. The hemp used in this manufactory is raised on the Genesee Flats, and costs there from $280 to $300 per ton, and when brought here, it amounts to $380. Tar is procured from New York, there being no pitch pine in this country, and the price there and transportation here bring it in cost to nine dollars. It constitutes in price a twenty-fifty part of the rope. You recognize, at a considerable distance, the Falls, from the ascent of vapors, and the clouds which are always hanging over the place, and you hear the roaring of the waters like the noise of thunder. At Fort Schlosser, upwards of two miles by water above the Falls, the river narrows, and a Rapid commences of irresistible force and immense velocity, and extends to the Falls. The noise and agitation and fury of these rapids constitute as great a curiosity as the Cataract itself. An island, denominated Goat Island (from the circumstance of Mr. Stedman, the former possessor of Fort Schlosser, keeping his goats there), and containing about eighty acres, runs up to the Falls and divides the waters. Here the whole river precipitates itself 162 1/2 feet, according to the report of an engineer, over a mass of calcareous stone and shistic. The greater part of the mighty mass passes over on the west side, and, viewed from the American bank, appears green in the thickest part of the Cataract, whereas the volume of water on our side, when seen from Table Rock, looks white, which is imputable to its inferior density. There are cataracts which exceed this in altitude, but there is none in the world which approaches it in volume of water. The elevation of the banks of the river detracts greatly from the sublimity of the spectacle. Below the Cataract there are huge rocks, which have been torn and hurled from their foundations by the Rapids. Two or three years ago, an immense mass of the rocky stratum was precipitated over, and shook the country around like an earthquake. If it be true, as is suggested, that the rock below the limestone is soft, if the river should ever succeed in carrying off the superior stratum, the whole of the upper lake will rush into Lake Ontario, and deluge whole counties below. I felt the agitation of the Falls in slightly shaking Judge Porter's house, and after I had retired to bed. It is generally supposed that every animal which passes over the Falls is killed; but this is a mistake. Tame geese frequently pass over alive. There is a dog at Chippeway which escaped with a broken rib; and two sheep were once found below the Cataract, one of which was alive. Fish often go over safely. On the other hand, the chance is greatly against life. Wild geese, fish, deer, and other creatures are to be seen dashed to pieces. A tragical story is told of a poor Indian, which would form a good subject for a poem. He tied his canoe to the shore at Chippeway, and fell asleep. A British soldier, it is supposed, loosened his fastening and he floated down. When he got involved in the great Rapid, he was awakened by the noise, and rising up and perceiving his situation, he tried to paddle himself out. But finding his efforts useless, he wrapped himself up in his blanket, and sat down in the canoe, and yielding himself to his fate with Roman fortitude. In this short and dreadful interval between life and death, the rich fancy of a poet might conceive and delineate the ideas which passed through the mind of the poor Indian, and the feelings which agitated his bosom, when on the eve of his final separation from his family and sacred home, and when the ties which united him to this world were about to be forever dissolved, A beautiful white substance is found at the bottom of the Falls, supposed by some to be gypsum, and by the vulgar to be a concretion of foam, generated by the force of the Cataract. But it is unquestionably part of the limestone dissolved and reunited. (The above was published in the March 2004 edition of "Fortress Niagara," the Newsletter-Journal of the Old Fort Niagara Association, editor Harry M. DeBan, pgs. 9-14. Permission to post it has been granted. To view the entire journal on line go to http://www.history.rochester.edu/canal/bib/campbell/Chap06.html. )