CHAPTER II. THE WHIRLPOOL. FROM Niagara Falls, long familiar with their various features, as above described, the author of these pages took it in his head to make a distant excursion, in the summer of 1830, into the wild regions of the North West, tenanted principally by savages, as they are commonly called, but more reverently by the aboriginal inhabitants of North America. The method selected of getting there was by the Lakes, and the point of embarkation, Buffalo. It is proper, perhaps, for the information of the British reader, to describe, briefly, the map and geographical relations of this region. There are probably few who have looked upon the map of North America, that have not had the curiosity to ascertain the situation of Niagara Falls. And they have found them upon that current, which connects Lake Ontario with Lake Erie, called THE WHIRLPOOL. 13 Niagara river, and in length about thirty milesit being one of the channels in connexion, by which the waters of that vast and notorious chain of inland seas, in North America, are disembogued into the gulf of St. Lawrence, and thence into the Atlantic. The Falls are distant ten miles from the southern margin of Lake Ontario, and twenty miles from the foot of Lake Erie, and four miles south of Queenston and Lewiston heights, the latter constituting the elevation, or brow above Lake Ontario, down. which the waters of Lake Erie must plunge in their way to the ocean. And the deep chasm between the falls and the heights, occupied by the river after its fall, four miles in length, before the agitated current finds a breathing place in the open plains below, and prepares itself to glide placidly into the lake, is supposed by geologists to have been formed by the wear and tear of this tremendous cataract, for a succession of ages not to be counted. For the geologist, especially if he be a Frenchman, does not deem himself obliged to regard the world's history, as suggested by the scriptural account of the Deluge, and of the antediluvian periods. Doubtless, if the wear of this chasm is to be estimated by its progress since known to the present civilized world, and according to this theory, it will be quite necessary to resort to some such authority as the Chinese historical records, or to the theory of a philosopher's brain, to solve this geological problem.* It may not be uninteresting, however, before we enter more extensively into our geographical lesson, that a moment here should be occupied in allusion to a Whirlpool, which is to be found in this part of Niagara river, a little more than half way from the Falls to Queenston, and which of its kind is not less remarkable than the Falls themselves. At this point, the river, in its compressed, deep, and rapid career, makes a sudden turn, or sharp angle, the effect of which has been to wear out and form a basin of considerable extent in a precipitous bank two hundred feet high, in which the waters of the river, as they come rushing from above, take a sweep before they can escape by the angle, which interrupts the channel, and find their passage in a downward course :-by which it will be seen, that a plural number of currents at this point must necessarily cross each other between the surface *It is interesting to remark, that M. Cuvier, before he died, had consented to take the chair at the next anniversary of the Paris Bible Society, and to exhibit the proofs of agreement between geological observations and the Mosaic account of the Creation and Deluge. THE WHIRLPOOL. 15 and the bed of the river, in the formation of this remarkable phenomenon. It uniformly happens, in the great variety of floating materials, descending the river, such as logs and lumber of various sorts, that portions of it are detained for days, and sometimes for weeks, sweeping the circuit of this basin, and every few moments returning by the draft of the whirlpool, and as they approach the vortex, are drawn in with great rapidity, and submerged to descend no one knows how deep, until by-and-by, following the currents, they appear again on the surface of the basin, to make the same circuit, and again to be drawn into the same vortex. It has sometimes happened, that the bodies of persons who have had the misfortune to get into the rapids above the Falls, and to be drawn down the awful cataract, or who have been drowned between the two points, after the usual process of decomposition has lightened their specific gravity, and raised them to the surface, have been seen for days floating around this whirlpool, and making the customary and successive plunges, to which every thing, that comes within its reach, is doomed without the possibility of rescue. It also happened, during the last war between the United States and Great Britain, (may there never be another contest so unnatural) that a British soldier upon a raft of palisades, which had been cut on the margin of this basin for the fortifications at Queenston, was sent adrift into this whirlpool by the parting of a rope connected with the shore, in the attempt to float the raft out of the basin into the river below. The force of the currents not being duly estimated, as the raft approached the vortex, drawn by the hands of other soldiers on shore, and claiming a passage at what was deemed a prudent distance, the too feeble cord snapped asunder to the amazement and horror, not only of the unfortunate man afloat, but equally of his comrades, who were compelled, without any means or hope of extending relief, to witness the unhappy fate of the devoted victim. In a moment the raft was seen careering with increased rapidity towards the visible and open centre of the whirling waters, where its immediate and total wreck was justly deemed inevitable; and down it went, and the man upon it, with "convulsive splash," and now nothing was seen. The spectators shrieked in sympathy. A soldier has his fellow feeling. For he is a man. Had their comrade fallen in battle, they might have trampled on his carcass in the onset of a charge, in disregard of his sufferings. And when they should come to bury him, they might say: "Thou hast died nobly." But that |