NIAGARA FALLS,

(FROM THE TOP OF THE LADDER ON THE AMERICAN SIDE.)

THIS is often the first near and general view of the Falls, and it is well calculated to produce the most astonishing impression on any one suddenly introduced to it. Supposing him to have arrived from Lockport, by a tedious progress through the forests, the visitor is conducted through a beautiful wood, presenting scenery of the softest character. But, with the roar of the cataract in his ear, he hurries rapidly through, till he stands on the very verge of the Fall, at the point where its mighty waters descend in one solemn unbroken mass into a gulf of spray, rising in clouds from the tortured waves beneath, and driven about by the gusts, till sometimes the whole river beneath, and the opposite shores, are momentarily concealed. As this misty curtain is withdrawn, the whole scene is disclosed. Beyond the American fall, which is immediately before him, and the wooded steeps of Goat Island, he sees the sublime curve of the Horse-shoe Fall; from below the centre of which, where the greatest mass of water descends, arises a tall and beautiful column of silvery vapour far into the sky.

At this spot is the entrance of the long covered ladder by which the descent to the ferry is accomplished. At an opening in it, half way down the precipice, people usually stop (in spite of their hurry, and that absorbing matter, the care of their baggage) to enjoy the only view, perhaps, which brings them near to the falling column in the midst of its descent. It is, indeed, "horribly beautiful." No one has better described the effect sometimes produced on the mind at Niagara, than Basil Hall.

"On Sunday night, the 8th of July, we returned to the Falls, and walked down to the Table Rock, to view them by moonlight. Our expectations, as may be supposed, were high, but the sight was more impressive than we had expected. It

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SAW-MILL AT CENTRE HARBOUR, LAKE WINIPISEogee.

possessed, it is true, what may be called a more sober kind of interest than that belonging to the wild scene behind the sheet of water above described. I may mention one curious effect:-it seemed to the imagination not impossible that the Fall might swell up, and grasp us in its vortex. The actual presence of any very powerful moving object is often more or less remotely connected with a feeling that its direction may be changed; and when the slightest variation would evidently prove fatal, a feeling of awe is easily excited. At all events, as I gazed upon the cataract, it more than once appeared to increase in its volume, and to be accelerated in its velocity, till my heated fancy became strained, alarmed, and so much overcrowded with new and old images,—all exaggerated; and in spite of the conviction that the whole was nonsense, I felt obliged to draw back from the edge of the rock; and it required a little reflection, and some resolution, to advance again to the brink.

"During the delightful period that the Falls formed our head-quarters, we made various excursions to several interesting objects in the neighbourhood. Of these, the most amusing were, a trip to Buffalo, a flourishing American town at the eastern end of Lake Erie, where the great New York canal commences; and a visit to the Welland canal, which joins Lake Erie with Lake Ontario."

SAW-MILL AT CENTRE HARBOUR,

LAKE WINIPISEOGEE.

"A

In the early records of the first settlement of Keene, in this state, on the river Asduelot, (in the Indian language, a collection of many waters,) is an account of some of their difficulties; among which was the establishment of a saw-mill. vote was passed," says the record, "offering one hundred acres of middling good land, and twenty-five pounds, to any person or persons who would engage to build a saw-mill, and saw boards for the proprietors at twenty shillings per thousand." The next year "another meeting was appointed at the house lot of Joseph Fisher, but was adjourned to the house of Nathan Blake, the first erected in the township." A committee was here appointed, " to agree with a man to build a great mill, and they were authorized to offer not exceeding forty pounds encouragement therefor." These