. Detroit, "The city of the strait"; historical, descriptive, illustrated . e acrumbling avalanche, immense and gently blown, of smallestsnowflakes ; but, again, it is not quite like this. Now we seethat, even apart from its main curves, no portion of the swiftlymoving wall is flat. It is all delicately fissured and furrowed,by the broken edges of the rock over which it falls, into thesuggestion of fluted buttresses, half-columns, pilasters. Andthe whiteness of these is not quite white. Nor is it consistentlyiridescent or opalescent. Very faintly, elusively, it is tingedwith tremulous stripes
. Detroit, "The city of the strait"; historical, descriptive, illustrated . e acrumbling avalanche, immense and gently blown, of smallestsnowflakes ; but, again, it is not quite like this. Now we seethat, even apart from its main curves, no portion of the swiftlymoving wall is flat. It is all delicately fissured and furrowed,by the broken edges of the rock over which it falls, into thesuggestion of fluted buttresses, half-columns, pilasters. Andthe whiteness of these is not quite white. Nor is it consistentlyiridescent or opalescent. Very faintly, elusively, it is tingedwith tremulous stripes and strands of pearly gray, of vagueststraw, shell-pink, lavender, and green — inconceivably etherealhues, shy ghosts of earthly colors, abashed and deflowered,we feel, by definite naming with earthly names. They seemhardly to tinge the whiteness ; rather, to float over it as a mistybloom. We are loath to turn our eyes from them, fearing theymay never show again. Yet they are as real as the keenemerald of the Horseshoe. —Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer in The Geological Section of Niagara falls. THE RECORD OF THE ROCKS. When one has recovered from the first emotional effects ofthe grand spectacle of Niagara Falls, and has realized some-what of its unique combination of beauty, majesty, and power,the spirit of inquiry is aroused and excited the more one seesthe region in detail. One appreciates that Niagara is morethan a spectacle ; that it is a wonderful illustration of theevolution and operation of forces that have been working sincethe worlds day-dawn ; that the precipitous cliffs of the deepcaiion show the edges of the leaves of the great stone-bookof nature that, unfolded and rightly interpreted, reveal thehistory of millions of years of the past, before man appearedupon the earth. One invariably asks why and how came thisgreat cataract, the greatest natural wonder of the world?What is the history of this great river or strait ? What thestory of this deep and n
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