T AWO centuries and more ago, when wooded Dufferin Islands in a sheltering Father Hennepin first came upon elbow far up the hurrying river. the "grand sault" of Niagara, it Rough railway bridges cross the rushing was set in a green solitude. Eagles, nest- water between these tiny islets, once an ing in the high cedar-tops, circled scream- inviolate, solitude, and till late strung toing through the mists of the "Thunder of gether only by light footbridges. Waters." And only the Red Man saw and wondered. Time has changed all that. Gone are the mighty cedars, and gone with them the strong-winged eagles. In place of the In place of the cedar has sprung up the telegraph-pole. In place of the screaming eagle has come the shrieking trolley-wire. In place of the In place of the solitary Red Man have come scurrying hordes of pale-faced picnickers. The sardine has entered Paradise. But why complain? We move, in fine. And if we have swept away the poetry of the natural, have we not more than replaced it by the wordless poetry of a machine age: Come and see. Yonder is the Queen's-alas, no 1-the King's Dominion. Where that smooth plain of greensward stretches along the top of the Canadian bluff, there was once a dense, luxuriant cedar-swamp. Mark you now the toy trolleys crawling from one glaring white post to another on the high cliff's brow. So they crawl, through leafy for ests down the deep-carved gorge, all the way to Queenstown, and up to the lovely So Canada. Now come with me across that graceful steel-arched bridge spanning the gorge, and let us, looking back from another country, behold what the Yankee has done with his heritage. The mist-shrouded arch of the Horse shoe Fall draws our eyes irresistibly upstream. It depends now upon how far into the past we look whether we speak in praise or blame. Going back to the days of La Salle and Hennepin, or even to the opening years of the century just past, we shall miss the giant oaks and the dense thicket of young trees and luxuriant undergrowth which once fringed the river bank and covered what is now Prospect Park. But if, on the other hand, we look back only to the time immediately preceding the opening of the reservation, in 1885, we shall miss, with indescribable exultation, a thousand sordid blemishes of the scene. For the Reservation Com missioners, with the scanty resources at their command, have accomplished landscape miracles. Bath Island, once the site of an obtrusive paper-mill, which thrust its hideous sluiceways and wingdams into the very heart of the tossing American Rapids, is now a stretch of smooth green turf, generously planted with nursling trees, the metamorphosed place being rechristened "Green Island." Bazaars, curio-shops, and tintype galleries, which had crowded themselves into the very spray of the Falls, overhanging the rapids, and monopolizing, where they did not altogether obscure, the finest views of the river, have been swept away. The river bank above the Falls, for many years disfigured with ice-houses, mills, and unsightly factories, has been cleared, and the shore line restored as far as possible to its natural wooded condition, though not, alas to any semblance of the glory of its primeval forests. Time alone can reproduce the original beauty of that cruelly mutilated bank. But the Commissioners have given time every opportunity to get to work. Below the American Fall, one seems to remember, a slender stream of water used to overleap the high cliff wall and dash itself to finest spray before it reached the rocks below. We called it the "Bridal Veil." Innocent though it look sheds, shapeless rookeries. Down the discolored face of the cliff run certain exaggerated stovepipes, painted Indian red, called penstocks, and certain toy caricatures of Niagara, contemptible driblets of waste water. On the naked débrisslope at the foot of the bluff, once clothed in the tenderest of mist-fed verdure, crouch two more factories, utilizing over again the water which has already turned the wheels of the mills above. Instinctively one cries out in indignation, Why is this allowed?" Allowed? Pray who is to prevent it? The cliff here is outside the jurisdiction of the reserva tion. Canada, rightly valuing her gorge, ex THE "BRIDAL VEIL" BEFORE DISFIGUREMENT ed, that film of water was the prophecy of mighty things to come, of wealth to the village of Niagara Falls, of ruin to Niagara's matchless gorge. For that slender stream was the outlet of the canal of the Hydraulic Power Company. Look now for the innocent Bridal Veil. It has multiplied itself by the hundred dozen." And alas for the cedar-grown, vine-draped cliff! Under the very shadow of the reservation, not two thousand feet from the plunge of the American Fall, huddles as foul and unsightly a milling village as ever dishonored a rivers brink. Flush with the edge of the denuded cliff they stand, flouring-mills, aluminum works, breweries, and whatnothulking factories, advertisement-blazoned rec tended the line of official protection all the way down to Queenstown. The American Commissioners ommended, it is true, that the bluff as far as the whirlpool become a part of the State park, but, niggardly counsels prevailing, the gorge was abandoned to its fate. Come, let us take one of these yellow trolleys and see what that fate has been. Fresh from the sight of the Canadian cliff, forest-crowned, and softly wooded to the very water's edge, we are scarcely prepared to relish the contrast between the Canadian and the American sides of the gorge. For, once as richly clothed as its vis-à-vis, the American cliff, where it is not wholly bald, has a ragged and motheaten appearance, the reverse of luxuriant. The forests have been torn from its summit for many a mile downstream; and it makes the matter no better to reflect that a mile strip of this bluff belongs to the Hydraulic Power Company, and that time will surely see it converted into a manufacturing district. From a point a little below the unbeautiful town of Suspension Bridge, a long, slanting line cuts athwart the steep face of the cliff from its summit to the water's edge. That is the trolleytrack of the Gorge Railway. Certainly it adds nothing to the beauty of the bluff, and one has an uncomfortable suspicion that the building of that road may have been in large measure responsible for the nakedness of the cliff. Not altogether responsible, however, for quite obviously there have been landslides. Whether or not landslides have been more frequent since the road disturbed the bank it may be rash to inquire. In any case, we might forgive much to the Gorge Railway for the sake of the marvelous views it makes possible. What we cannot forgive is the gratuitous insult of the vast, glaring signboard stretched on the perpendicular bank, down which letters of heroic size go marching Japanese fashion into the gorge-GORGE ROAD. That style of advertising deserves to react unfavorably upon its perpetrators. If we permit the trolley which brings us back up the gorge to carry us on to Chippewa, we shall have seen the last of Yankee outrages upon the river. For Chippewa, as well as the upper end of Goat Island, commands a view of the river above the American Rapids. It is not a beautiful view. Tall red chimneys rise over a flourishing colony of low red factories, and trailing clouds of soot stain the sky and the smooth reflecting surface of the river. That is the Upper Power Plant, with attendant factories, which occupies the site of the old historic Fort Schlosser, dating from 1762, and the still older French fort of Little Niagara. So much for the desecration of the scenery of Niagara. Purely practical people, I know, are a bit contemptuous of such protests as mine, regarding the æsthetic loss of the power plants as more than offset by the commercial gain. "If you will have an omelet," say they (meaning thereby, if you will have electric power), "you must break some eggs." That might, perhaps, be excellent reasoning had not the State already invested some two and a half millions of dollars in Niagara for purely aesthetic purposes. But be that as it may. The point which next demands our attention is strictly a practical one. If it is worth while to have a waterfall at all (and the State of New York would seem to stand committed to that position), then it is manifestly desirable to have water enough to go over the falls. Yet that is the precise point which the Legislature at Albany appears to have overlooked. For since 1886 it has been busily granting to all who asked practically unlimited right to divert the waters of the Niagara River above the Falls. Seven power companies have been organized since that date: The Niagara Falls Power Company, with the right to divert water sufficient to produce two hundred thousand horse-power, or 7,719,360 gallons per minute, or six per cent. of the total amount going over the Falls; the Lockport Water Supply Company, with the right to supply unlimited water to the city of Lockport and any town or village in Niagara County; the Niagara County Irrigation and Water Supply Company, with right to supply unlimited water to Lewiston and other cities and villages in the towns of Niagara, Lewiston, and Porter; the Lewiston Water Supply Company, amount unlimited; the Buffalo and Niagara Power Company, with the right to take unlimited water for domestic, sanitary, commercial, manufacturing, and agricultural purposes; the Model Town Company, with the right to divert by canal from La Salle an unlimited amount of water; and the Niagara, Lockport, and Ontario Power Company, authorized to supply water to Lockport and other villages and cities in Niagara, Erie, and Ontario. Counties. And all these amazing privileges the open-handed State has dispensed without exacting so much as a penny in compensation for the enormously valuable franchises. It is no fault of the State Legislature that, for lack of capital or enterprise, some of these companies have allowed their charters to lapse, while others have been bought up by the Niagara Falls Power Company, so that but one company is in actual operation to-day— one, that is, besides the old Hydraulic Power Company, established in 1862, which originally held no grant from the State. In 1897, however, the thoughtful Legislature confirmed the claims of this company, thus intrenching behind impregnable rights that wretched milling village beside the Falls. These two companies are at present taking from the Niagara River seven million three hundred thousand odd gallons of water per minute, or about six per cent. of the total flow over the Falls. When the Upper Company have exhausted their present limit, nine per cent. of the river's water will have been turned aside the Mist" have been necessary to enable before it reaches the Falls. And the effect on the Falls? Superficial observers readily convince themselves that there has been a distinctly noticeable decline in the volume of the American Fall. Experts, however, juggling with mean depths, velocities, and percentages, assure us that the diversion of water into the power tunnels and canals has not reduced the depth of the crest of the fall to an extent appreciable to the her to land her passengers when the river is low. During a heavy gale last October, laden vessels were unable to make their piers at Tonawanda, so low was the water, while at Niagara bare rocks showed through the breakers of the American Rapids. Expert calculations forbidding us to lay all this at the door of the power companies, we must look further for an explanation. Six hundred miles further it Showing the nakedness of the American bluff in contrast to the richly wooded Canadian bluff. eye. And yet the superficial observers are right, too. The river is low, and in times of drought or unfavorable winds a phenomenally small amount of water goes over the American Fall. Proof of these lamentable facts are not wanting. For several years the lovely little fall between Goat Island and the first of the Sisters, known as the Hermit's Cascade, has been so nearly dry that last year it was necessary to deepen the channel above the cascade to restore the old volume of water and the original beauty of the fall. Furthermore, within the last few years alterations in the dock of the "Maid of appears; for the foe of Niagara is, if I mistake not, the, Chicago Main Drainage Canal. Nor am I unsupported by expert testimony in this matter. Mr. Willis Moore, of the United States Weather Bureau, at the close of his official tour of the Great Lakes, declared emphatically that the effect of the opening of the Drainage Canal had been, not, as so often said, to lower the level of the lakes, but to diminish the amount of water going over Niagara Falls. The thing is simple enough when you think of it. Picture to yourself the four upper lakes, which are practically on the |