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Andersons Fall).

compared with their size, is enormous, as may be understood from the fact that most of the stones used in forming this cache were, singly, as much as two able men could lift.

Each of the crew being laden with a piece weighing seventy-five pounds, we began our march to the Fort across the mountains, now entirely covered with snow four inches deep. The small lakes and swamps were also frozen hard enough to bear a passage across. We had not proceeded more than six or seven miles, when observing the spray rising from another fall, we were induced to visit it, and were well consoled for having left the boat where she was. From the only point at which the greater part of it was visible, we could distinguish the river coming sharp round a rock, and falling into an upper basin almost concealed by intervening rocks; whence it broke in one vast sheet into a chasm between four and five hundred feet deep, yet in appearance so narrow that we fancied we could almost step across it. Out of this the spray rose in misty columns several hundred feet above our heads; but as it was impossible to see the main fall from the side on which we were, in the following spring I paid a second visit to it, approaching from the western bank. The road to it, which I then traversed in snow shoes, was fatiguing in the extreme, and

scarcely less dangerous; for, to say nothing of the steep ascents, fissures in the rocks, and deep snow in the valleys, we had sometimes to creep along the narrow shelves of precipices slippery with the frozen mist that fell on them. But it was a sight which well repaid any risk. My first impression was of a strong resemblance to an iceberg in Smeerenberg Harbour, Spitzbergen. The whole face of the rocks forming the chasm was entirely coated with blue, green, and white ice, in thousands of pendent icicles: and there were, moreover, caverns, fissures, and overhanging ledges in all imaginable varieties of form, so curious and beautiful as to surpass any thing of which I had ever heard or read. The immediate approaches were extremely hazardous, nor could we obtain a perfect view of the lower fall, in consequence of the projection of the western cliffs. At the lowest position which we were able to attain, we were still more than a hundred feet above the level of the bed of the river beneath; and this, instead of being narrow enough to step across, as it had seemed from the opposite heights, was found to be at least two hundred feet wide.

The colour of the water varied from a very light to a very dark green; and the spray, which spread a dimness above, was thrown up in clouds of light grey. Niagara, Wilberforce's Falls in

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Hood's River, the falls of Kakabikka near Lake Superior, the Swiss or Italian falls, although they may each "charm the eye with dread," are not to be compared to this for splendour of effect. It was the most imposing spectacle I had ever witnessed; and, as its berg-like appearance brought to mind associations of another scene, I bestowed upon it the name of our celebrated navigator, Sir Edward Parry, and called it Parry's Falls.

Late

September 27th.-The journey was resumed at an early hour. On passing my resting place of the preceding spring, I was surprised to see the havoc caused by the summer storms, which had uptorn by the roots and laid prostrate the tallest pines of the forest; and the devastation was even greater as we neared the lake. in the forenoon we arrived at Fort Reliance, after an absence of nearly four months; tired indeed, but well in health, and truly grateful for the manifold mercies we had experienced in the course of our long and perilous journey. The house was standing, but that was all; for it inclined fearfully to the west, and the mud used for plastering had been washed away by the rain. The observatory was in little better state; and my canoe had been splintered by lightning. Nothing, in short, could present a more cheerless appearance for a dwelling: but the goods, and

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