The Falls of Niagara and Other Famous Cataracts Part 11

"Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we That hear the question of that voice sublime?

Oh! what are all the notes that ever rung From War's vain trumpet by thy thundering side!

Yea, what is all the riot man can make In his short life to thy unceasing roar!

And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to HIM Who drown'd a world and heap'd the waters far Above its loftiest mountains?--a light wave That breaks and whispers of its Maker's might."

PART IV.

OTHER FAMOUS CATARACTS OF THE WORLD.

CHAPTER XIX.

Yosemite--Vernal--Nevada--Yellowstone--Shoshone--St.

Maurice--Montmorency.

For the purpose of comparison it may be interesting to note other cataracts in the United States, and in other parts of the world, and also some of the remarkable rapids, which may be successors to what were once perpendicular falls. For descriptions of those in foreign countries we are chiefly indebted to the geographical gazetteers and the journals of Humboldt, Livingstone, Bohle, and Stanley; for information regarding the cataracts of Norway we are indebted to Murray's "Norway, Denmark and Sweden."

[Ill.u.s.tration: YOSEMITE FALLS]

In the United States, after Niagara, the first to claim our attention are the Falls of the Yosemite, so graphically and scientifically made known to us in the second volume of Professor J. D. Whitney's Geological Report for California.

Before describing them it is necessary to note the physical features of the region in which they are placed. The valley of the Yosemite forms a portion of the bed of the Merced River, which flows through it and pa.s.ses from it by a wild, deep canon into the San Joaquin. It is about eight miles long and from half a mile to a mile wide, with a sharp bend to the west, about two miles from its upper end. To this place the Merced and two tributaries, called the North and South Forks, have come through the most rugged canons, falling nearly two thousand feet in the s.p.a.ce of two miles.

Near the southerly end of the valley is the remarkable rock El Capitan, an almost vertical cliff 3,600 feet high, and one of the grandest objects in the valley. Just above this is the imposing pile called the Cathedral Rocks, and behind these, connected with them, two slender and beautiful granite columns called the Cathedral Spires.

Two miles above, on the opposite side, is the row of summits, rising like steps one above another, named the Three Brothers. On the other side, in the angle of the valley, stands Sentinel Rock, so called from its fancied resemblance to a watch-tower. Three-fourths of a mile in a southerly direction from this is the Sentinel Dome, more than four thousand feet high and affording from its summit a most magnificent view. Following up the North Fork, just at the entrance of the canon, rises the Half Dome, the grandest and loftiest in the Yosemite Valley, an inaccessible crest of granite, having an elevation--according to Prof. Brewer--of 6,000 feet. On the opposite side of the same canon stands the North Dome, another of those rounded ma.s.ses of granite so characteristic of the sierras. Appearing as a b.u.t.tress to this is Was.h.i.+ngton's Column, and below this the Royal Arches, an immense arched cavity, formed by the giving way and sliding down of portions of the rock, and presenting, in the upper part, a vaulted appearance.

In the angle formed by the Merced with the South Fork is the symmetrical and beautiful North Dome. This valley is the most remarkable basin thus far found in the world, and in view of its gigantic and impressive scenery we cannot but marvel at its size--a mere cup or trough in the midst of one of the sublimest of geological formations. This tiny strip of wonder-land is, as we have seen, only eight miles long and less than three-quarters of a mile average width.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRIDAL VEIL FALL]

Beginning at the south-westerly end of the valley we first reach, in ascending it, the Bridal Veil, formed by one of the torrents that feed the Merced River. It is 1,000 feet in height, the body of water not being large, but sufficient to produce the most picturesque effect. As it is swayed backward and forward by the force of the wind, it seems to flutter like a white veil.

Near the head of the valley, where it turns sharply toward the west, we have before us the Yosemite Fall. "From the edge of the cliff to the bottom of the valley the perpendicular distance is, in round numbers, 2,550 feet. The fall is not one perpendicular sheet. There is first a vertical descent of 1,500 feet, when the water strikes on what seems to be a projecting ledge, but which is in reality a shelf or recess about a third of a mile back from the front of the lower portion of the cliff.

Across this shelf the water rushes downward in a foaming torrent on a slope, equal to a perpendicular height of 626 feet, when it makes a final plunge of about 400 feet on to a low talus of rock at the foot of the precipice. As these various falls are in one vertical plane, the effect of the whole from the opposite side of the valley is nearly as grand, and perhaps even more picturesque, than it would be if the descent was made in one sheet from the top to the bottom. The ma.s.s of water in the 1,500 feet fall is too great to allow of its being entirely broken up into spray, but it widens very much as it descends, and as the sheet vibrates backward and forward with the varying pressure of the wind, which acts with immense force on this long column of water, the effect is indescribably grand."

The first fall in the canon of the Merced is the Vernal, "a simple perpendicular sheet 475 feet high, the rock behind it being a perfectly square-cut ma.s.s of granite. Ascending to the summit of the Vernal Fall by a series of ladders, and pa.s.sing a succession of rapids and cascades of great beauty, we come to the last great fall of the Merced--the Nevada, which has a descent of 639 feet, and near its summit has a peculiar twist caused by the ma.s.s of water falling on a projecting ledge which throws it off to one side, adding greatly to the picturesque effect. It must be ranked as one of the finest cataracts in the world, taking into consideration its height, the volume and purity of the water, and the whole character of the scenery which surrounds it."

The fall from end to end of the valley proper is about fifty feet. "Its smooth and brilliant color, diversified as it is with groves of trees and carpeted with showy flowers, offers the most wonderful contrast to the towering ma.s.ses of neutral and light purple-tinted rocks by which it is surrounded. Its elevation above the sea is estimated at 4,060 feet, and the cliffs and domes about it from 3,000 to 5,000 feet higher." It is a source of great satisfaction to the lover of nature that this famous and favored territory, so studded with grandeur and fretted with beauty, has wisely been set apart by Governmental authority to minister to the higher needs and better instincts of man.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VERNAL FALLS]

The valley of the Yellowstone east of the Rocky Mountains in the north, like that of the Yosemite west of the sierras of the Pacific slope, is another wonder-land, presenting a bewildering variety of land and water formations which, in turn, awe, charm, fascinate, or amuse, but always astonish, the beholder.

Among the most interesting objects in the Yellowstone Valley are the upper and lower falls of the Yellowstone River. "No language," says Professor Hayden, "can do justice to the wonderful grandeur and beauty of these scenes, and it is only through the eye that the mind can gather anything like an adequate conception of them. The two falls are not more than a fourth of a mile apart. Above the upper fall the Yellowstone flows through a gra.s.sy, meadow-like valley with a calm, steady current, giving no warning until very near the fall that it is about to rush over a precipice 140 feet high, and then, within a quarter of a mile, again leap down a distance of 350 feet. After the waters roll over the upper descent they flow with great rapidity along the upper flat, rocky bottom which spreads out to near double the width above the falls, and continues thus until near the fall, when the channel again contracts and the waters seem, as it were, to gather into a compact ma.s.s and plunge over the descent of 350 feet in detached drops of foam as white as snow."

On the Snake or Lewis River, the largest tributary of the Columbia River, are three falls, the greatest of which is the Shoshone in Idaho, where the river, with a width of six hundred yards, is said to be of so great a depth that it discharges nearly as much water as the Niagara, over a precipice about two hundred feet high. This grand fall is situated in the midst of magnificent scenery, and is surrounded by a fertile country.

Another lesser Niagara is found in the north-east, in the river St.

Maurice, the largest tributary of the St. Lawrence, which falls into it from the north below Three Rivers and about twenty-two miles above its mouth. The fall--the Shawenegan--is the same height as Niagara, and while the width and depth of the river are not given, the volume of water pouring over the precipice is said to be forty thousand feet per second, a supply sufficient to produce a grand and impressive cataract.

Eight miles below Quebec the river Montmorency discharges directly into the St. Lawrence, over a cliff two hundred and fifty feet high, with a width of one hundred and fifty feet. The falling foam-flecked sheet presents a beautiful and picturesque appearance. It is unique as being the only known instance in which a tributary falls perpendicularly into the main stream.

CHAPTER XX.

Tequendama--Kaiteeur--Paulo Affonso--Keel-fos--Riunkan-fos--Sarp-fos--Staubbach--Zambesi or Victoria--Murchison--Cavery--Schaffhausen.

In South America is the remarkable fall of Tequendama, on the river Bogota, which, at this point, is only one hundred and forty feet wide, and is divided into numerous narrow and deep channels which finally unite in two of nearly the same width, and make a perpendicular plunge of six hundred and fifty feet to the plain below. "The cataract," says Humboldt, "forms an a.s.semblage of everything that is sublimely picturesque in beautiful scenery. It is not one of the highest falls, but there scarcely exists a cataract which, from so lofty a height, precipitates so voluminous a ma.s.s of water. The body, when it first parts from its bed, forms a broad arch of gla.s.sy appearance; a little lower down it a.s.sumes a fleecy form, and ultimately, in its progress, it shoots forth in millions of smaller ma.s.ses, which chase each other like sky-rockets. The attending noises are quite astounding, and dense clouds of vapor soar upward, presenting beautiful rainbows in their ascent.

What gives a remarkable appearance to the scene is the great difference in the vegetation surrounding different parts of it." At the summit the traveler "finds himself surrounded, not only with begonias and the yellow bark tree (Sandal), but with oaks, elms, and other plants, the growth of which recall to mind the vegetation of Europe, when suddenly he discovers, as from a terrace and at his feet, a country producing the palm, the banana, and the sugar-cane. The cause of the difference is not ascertained, the difference of alt.i.tude--one hundred and seventy-five metres--not being sufficient to exert much influence on the atmosphere."

[Ill.u.s.tration: NEVADA FALLS]

Another and grander South American fall, of comparatively recent discovery, is the Kaiteeur, so called, in the river Potaro, a large affluent of the Essequibo, the largest river in British Guiana. The volume of water is greater than that in the Bogota, and falls in a single column of dazzling whiteness seven hundred and forty feet into a vast basin below. The ascending cloud of spray, the solemn monotone of the descending flood, the extreme wildness of the primitive forest, and the luxuriant and abundant growth of tropical vines and shrubs, and their gorgeous colors, make the scene impressive.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOWER FALLS OF THE YELLOWSTONE]

"There is in Brazil," says Elisee Reclus, "not far from Bahia, the wonderful cataract of San Francisco, known by the name of Paulo Affonso.

At the foot of a long slope over which it glides in rapids, the river, one of the most considerable of the South American continent, whirls round and round as it enters a kind of funnel-shaped cavity, roughened with rocks, and suddenly contracting its width, dashes against three rocky ma.s.ses reared up like towers at the edge of the abyss; then dividing into four vast columns of water, it plunges down into a gulf two hundred and forty-six feet in depth. The princ.i.p.al column, being confined in a perpendicular pa.s.sage, is scarcely sixty-six feet in width, but it must be of an enormous thickness (depth), as it forms almost the whole body of the river. Half way up, the channel which contains it bends to the left, and the falling ma.s.s, changing its direction, pa.s.ses under a vertical column of water, which penetrates through it from one side to the other, and breaking it up into a chaos of surges, converts it into a sea of foam. Sometimes the white, misty vapor may be seen, and the thunder of the water may be heard at a distance of more than fifteen miles." The spray and roar of Niagara are often seen and heard at Toronto, forty miles away, across Lake Ontario.

In Norway is found the highest perpendicular fall in the world that is constantly supplied with water. It is the Keel-fos, formed by a mountain stream that falls two thousand feet into the Navoens Fjord near Gudhaven, but the water becomes a mere billowy bank of mist before it reaches the bottom.

The Riunkan-fos is another Norwegian cataract in the outlet of Lake Mjosvard, which pours through a wild, rock-studded slope until it reaches a precipice, on the brink of which it is divided by a huge ma.s.s of rock into two channels. Thence it falls eight hundred and eighty feet into a dark basin at its foot, from which water-rockets and sharp jets of foam shoot up and out in all directions. The intense whiteness of the fleecy column is indescribable.

A still more famous Norwegian cataract is the Sarp-fos in the Stor-Elven, formed by the junction of the Lougen and Glommen, the largest of the Norwegian rivers. Like the Riunkan-fos the stream is greatly contracted in a rocky gorge, and at the edge of the cliff is divided into two channels which, however, soon unite in a fall of one hundred feet upon huge ma.s.ses of rock, through and over which it rushes tumultuously for a short distance, and then flows quietly into the sea.

The volume of water is unusually large for a purely mountain river, being in the gorge at the top of the fall one hundred and fifty feet wide and forty feet deep. The ma.s.sive and intensely white column contrasted with the dark green foliage of the solemn pines, and the darker rocks about it, and the deep blue water into which it falls, produce a vivid impression on the mind of the beholder. The Stor-Elven here presents the curious phenomenon of a stream changing, not from a perpendicular fall to a rapid, but the reverse, from a rapid to a perpendicular fall. A great portion of the right bank of the river at the fall, and for a considerable distance below, is chiefly composed of a stiff blue clay, and the river once flowed past Sarpsborg, a mile below, in a succession of magnificent rapids. At that time a superb mansion with numerous out-buildings stood at the termination of the rapids. On the 5th of February, 1702, the mansion, together with everything in and about it, sunk into an abyss six hundred feet deep, and was entirely buried beneath the water. The walls of the house were of unusual strength and thickness, with several high towers, but the whole was buried out of sight. Fourteen persons and two hundred head of cattle were also engulfed. The catastrophe was caused by the was.h.i.+ng out of the blue clay, and the undermining of the bank, which then toppled over into the watery chasm.

[Ill.u.s.tration: UPPER FALLS OF THE YELLOWSTONE]

In Switzerland is the Staubbach--dust-stream--a well known fall in the canton of Berne. It has a sheer descent of nearly nine hundred feet, in which the water is converted into spray that is easily moved by the wind, thus giving it a singularly beautiful resemblance to a white curtain floating in the air.

In South Africa, Livingstone has made the public acquainted with that extraordinary hiatus in the crust of the earth in which the great river Zambesi is swallowed up. A stream more than a thousand yards wide, dotted with islands, flowing between fertile banks clothed with the luxuriant and gorgeous vegetation of the tropics, without the least preliminary break or rapid, suddenly drops into a dark chasm of unknown depth, which, repeatedly doubling on itself, pursues its tortuous course some forty miles through the hills before emerging again into the sunlight. "From Kalai," says Livingstone, "after some twenty minutes'

sail we came in sight of the columns of vapor appropriately called smoke. * * * Five columns now arose, and, bending in the direction of the wind, they seemed placed against a low ridge covered with trees. The tops of the columns at this distance (six miles) appeared to mingle with the clouds. The whole scene was extremely beautiful." At the brink of the chasm he found the river divided into two channels of unequal width by a large island called the "Garden," on account of its rich vegetation. "Creeping with awe to the verge I peered down into a large rent which had been made from bank to bank of the broad Zambesi, and saw that a stream a thousand yards broad leaped down a hundred feet and then became suddenly compressed into a s.p.a.ce of fifteen or twenty yards.

In looking down into this fissure on the right of the island one sees nothing but a dense, white cloud. From this cloud rushed up a great jet of vapor exactly like steam, and it mounted two hundred or three hundred feet high; then, condensing, it changed its hue into that of dark smoke, and came back in a constant shower. This shower fell chiefly on the opposite side of the fissure, and a few yards back from the top there stands a straight hedge of evergreen trees, whose leaves are always wet.

From their roots a number of little rills run back into the gulf, but as they flow down the steep wall the column of vapor in its ascent licks them up clean off the rock, and away they mount again. They are constantly running down, but never reach the bottom."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STAUBBACH, SWITZERLAND]

In Northern Africa the Murchison Falls in the White Nile, between lakes Victoria N'yanzi and Albert N'yanzi, were discovered by Sir Samuel Baker, and are described by him. "Upon rounding the corner a magnificent sight burst suddenly upon us. On either side of the river were beautifully wooded cliffs rising abruptly to a height of about three hundred feet; rocks were jutting out from the intensely green foliage, and, rus.h.i.+ng through a gap that cleft the river exactly before us, the river itself, contracted from a grand stream, was pent up in a narrow gorge scarcely fifty yards in width; roaring furiously through the rock-bound pa.s.s, it plunged in one leap of about one hundred and twenty feet perpendicularly into a dark abyss below. The fall of water was snow-white, which had a superb effect, as it contrasted with the dark cliffs that walled the river, while graceful palms of the tropics and wild plantains perfected the beauty of the view."