gentle blood, and quite unpolished and inelegant in his bearing, there was a quiet self-respect, a melancholy modesty in his manner which was singular. From his black coat of coarse cloth and priggish cut, his white neckcloth tied in the vilest manner, I should have guessed him to be a dissenting preacher, even without the assistance of the tract which he held in his hand, and which he began to read as soon as we were off the stones.

round about Tunbridge is very fine, and it is still finer at Tunbridge Wells, which is about four miles off. Tunbridge Wells is apparently composed of new, and in many instances handsome stone houses, built for the accommodation of visitors. Its situation is peculiarly beautiful. After passing Tunbridge, I began to find that I was hungry. The succession of interesting scenes, and the amusing and clever conversation of the coachman touching the various places we passed, had given me an appetite; and when the coach stopped at Pemry to dine, I attacked a cold sirloin with right good-will. Here I entered into conversation with the young minister, and was struck with the justice and good sense of all he said. His account of Hastings and its environs pleased me much. It was evident that his feeling for the beauties of nature was not destroyed by his renunciation of the things of this world. I asked him if he could direct me to some quiet lodgings on my arrival in Hastings, as I particularly disliked remaining at an inn. After a moment's reflection, he looked earnestly at me, and replied, 'You observed the old man and his daughter who are our fellow-travellers? They are persons in reduced circumstances, and let part of their house. I lodge with them. I think they have more rooms to spare. I can only say that the house is very quiet, and that I find them very pleasant people to live with. They are true Christians, and belong to my congregation.' Saying which, he bent down his eyes, and then remained silent. I thanked him for his information, and resolved to speak to the daughter as soon as we reached Hastings. After taking our places again, I began to talk to her about Hastings, and the beautiful country we were passing; she answered in such a manner as to convince me that although she was obliged to ride outside a coach, her education would not have disgraced the owner of a carriage. When we came to Battle, she pointed out many beautiful things in that picturesque old town, and showed a knowledge of the history of the place which was, as I thought, extraordinary for a woman, until her father told me that he had devoted great part of his life to a study of the antiquities of Sussex, and that his daughter was born at Battle. The first sight of the sea, on our approach to Hastings, was at a distance of four miles from the coast. I could scarcely believe that we were already so near the end of our journey, or that I had been nearly nine hours on the road. The day had been lovely; neither too hot nor too cold. We had no rain, and not very much dust. During the last part of the ride, the only passengers in with wide sweeps of corn-fields, hop-gardens, meadows, front were the old man and his daughter, their minister, woods, and heaths. Many a snug homestead, or farm, and I; and our conversation having, as I said, turned is seen nestling in a hollow, and the labourer in the upon the history of the locality, it became general. As fields stops to stare up at the coach as it passes. On the coach went along the road from St Leonard's to driving through a village, your eyes are feasted with Hastings, which lies along the beach, I was absorbed the well-kept gardens before the cottage doors. Such in watching the waves, and allowed the others to talk roses and lilies, hollyoaks and sweet peas, clematis and without me. Presently the old man drew my attention, honeysuckle, as I saw crammed within tiny gardens ten and said that he was sorry to part with me. I returned feet square! all as carefully tended as if the lady of the his kind speech by another; and then lowering my manor sent her own gardener to keep them in order. voice, so as not to be heard by our merry-hearted Then the cottages themselves were a treat to see-so coachman, informed him that I should feel much clean, and neat, and cared for! The children not in- obliged if he and his daughter would receive me as a deed so clean as their homes, but merry, rosy, and lodger, since I had learned from the gentleman beside noisy. The coming of the coach was a daily cause of them that they wished to let part of their house. The excitement, and the urchins roared after it as if it affair was arranged in a minute. When the coach carried away their schoolmaster. The towns through stopped at the Castle Hotel in Hastings, we four did which we passed, and the inns at which we changed not part, as fellow-passengers generally do, but we all horses, were such as no other country that I am ac- walked together to old Mr C- -'s house, near Allquainted with can boast. An English country town Saints' Church, and sat down to a plain dinner together. (not manufacturing), and an English inn (not a tavern Mary C and her father are indeed 'pleasant per or gin-palace), is to my mind a credit to the nation in sons to live with.' I have spent a fortnight here every way-municipal, moral, aesthetical, ay, and even already, and as yet I feel no inclination to go away. intellectual. I will answer for it, that any one English Now, dear reader, I have travelled on all the railtown, of the size of Tunbridge, for instance, will pro- ways in England, and on many abroad, but not one has duce half-a-dozen persons fit to grace a literary draw-ever produced so very agreeable an acquaintance for ing-room, or the pages of a magazine, as well as the same number culled from the same rank of persons in any one parish of London or Edinburgh. The country

The young woman had whispered something to the old man as soon as she saw the person I have last described, and before mounting the coach, the old man had taken off his hat respectfully to the minister. The latter shook hands with them both, and assisted them to ascend. Afterwards he seemed to forget them, and to be lost in his own reflections. But the young woman, though scarcely daring to look at him, seemed always to see what he was doing. The expression of mingled reverence and admiration was not without a tinge of a tenderer feeling as she regarded him. He was her spiritual pastor and master, a minister of the gospel, and the preacher at her chapel. Besides this, he was a saint-a learned man; and so kind and good, as to forget himself for any one who needed help. All this I read in the girl's face as she sat beside him.

Talk of the dangers of a red coat to a woman's heart! they are as nothing compared with those of a black one. Of twenty women, five will be attracted by a soldier, while the other fifteen will find more to love and admire in a clergyman. The soldier inspires a light fancy, which is soon cured; the clergyman a far deeper feeling. I watched all these persons, and conversed with them during the journey. The old man and his daughter, and the minister, were residents in Hastings; the others we parted with on our road. And what a road that was! If I wished to give a foreigner a true idea of rural comfort and agricultural wealth in England, and also to give him a sight of picturesque scenes peculiarly English, I would place him outside a coach, and send him from London to Hastings. The road lies through Lewisham, Bromley, Seven-Oaks; then it skirts a part of Knowle Park, giving beautiful bits' of its unrivalled sylvan scenery. Hereabouts the hop-gardens begin. From the tops of hills you get extensive views over Kent and Surrey, noting

'Many a village marked by little spire,'

and many a fair mansion

'Bosomed high in tufted trees,'

me as this old-fashioned by going' coach. I cannot say that for all purposes a coach is best, but I am sure it is best if you wish to see the country through which you

pass, and learn something of the characters of your companions. Therefore, I say, be not the mail entirely despised-be it not parted from without at least the due tribute of a sigh.

All beholders speak of the Niagara Falls in terms of the highest admiration, but with a strong sense of the impossibility of conveying by words an adequate idea of the grandeur of the scene. We take leave to quote a few descriptive passages from Mr Bouchette. The first object that meets the eye, after descending to the Table Rock, is the splendid gradation of swift rapids above the Falls; then white revolving clouds of mist, irregularly belched forth from the abyss, rush across the platform, enveloping the beholder; and as these are swept away by perpetually varying currents of air, he approaches nearer the verge of the rock, and beholds the whole length of the tremendous cataract. The loud shrill roar of the rapids is lost amidst the appalling thunders of the Falls, which give a real or imaginary tremulous motion to the earth, and seem to threaten a disruption of the projecting rock upon which we are standing. The view from this spot is extremely grand, and unspeakably sublime; but it is too near and overwhole splendour of the scene. The summit of the bank, rising about one hundred feet above the Table Rock, affords a more comprehensive and advantageous view. This position is most commanding, and perhaps the point from whence the collective magnificence of the cataract can be seen with the greatest effect. According to the altitude of the sun, and the situation of the spectator, a distinct and bright iris is seen amidst the revolving columns of mist, that soar from the foaming chasm, and shroud the broad front of the gigantic flood. Both arches of the bow are seldom seen entirely elicited; but the inferior segment is perfect, and its prismatic hues are extremely glowing and vivid. The fragments of a plurality of rainbows are sometimes to be seen in various parts of the misty curtain of the Falls.

THE GEOLOGY OF THE NIAGARA FALLS. THESE Falls, which an American writer, with justifiable boldness, speaks of as the greatest wonder in the world, occur, as is well known, on the course of that stream which forms the outlet of the great chain of Canadian lakes. In passing from the Atlantic up this grand natural water-course, we first come to Lake Ontario, a sheet of water a hundred and seventy miles long, and bearing all the ordinary appearances of a sea. Between this lake and Lake Erie there is a connecting river of about thirty miles, usually called the Niagara River, though it is the same stream which, below Lake Ontario, bears the name of the St Lawrence. It is about the middle of this short river course that the Great Waterfall takes place. The arrangement of physical objects essential to the fall is simple, and easily under-powering to permit the spectator fully to appreciate the stood. The river flows over a flat table-land, in a depression of which Lake Erie is situated. Where it flows from the lake, it is three hundred and thirty feet above Lake Ontario, which is about thirty miles distant. It is here a mile broad, with all the appear ance of an arm of Lake Erie. After flowing about fifteen miles between low banks, and only descending as many feet, it comes to a series of rapids terminating in a precipice of about one hundred and sixty-five feet, down which it is precipitated into a narrow ravine, which extends for seven miles, and along which the waters make a comparatively rapid descent. The course of the river above the fall is occasionally three miles broad, and studded with low woody islands, one of which forms a considerable tract of land. Below the fall, all is changed, for the water then runs with turbid violence in a trough or groove, generally hot more than four hundred yards broad, and in some places only about half that width. At Queenstown, again, having passed out of the elevated region, it once more assumes a slow and gentle course over an open country, and thus it continues till it joins Lake Ontario. The course of the Niagara River is north and south; the country on the east or right bank belongs to the United States; that on the west is part of Canada.

A vast volume of water, the drainage of a country thousands of miles in extent, pouring over a rock one hundred and sixty-five feet high, must needs constitute an object of uncommon sublimity in almost any circumstances. It is admitted that, if it took place amidst savage alpine scenery, its effect would be greatly increased. As it is, there are some external features not unworthy of the neighbourhood of so grand an object. The western shore is a cliff of about eighty feet above the top of the fall; the eastern shore is lower, but is finely wooded. The whole breadth of the river at the fall-eleven hundred yards, or nearly two-thirds of a mile, and forming the chord of an irregular arc-is divided by a low wooded island, called Goat Island, into two parts, the eastern of which is about three hundred and seventy-five yards in curvilinear length, constituting what is called the American Fall; while the western is about seven hundred yards in the same measurement, forming the more celebrated Horse-Shoe Fall, so called from its strikingly curved form. Level with the edge of this fall is a platform called Table Rock, projecting over the abyss below, and from which a fine view of the cataract is obtained. This rock seems much shattered, and likely soon to give way; yet young and headstrong persons will sometimes lay themselves prostrate on its front edge, and with extended hand cleave the torrent as it leaps down. One who has acted in this venturesome way says, 'The prodigious volume and indraught of the falling waters, the gushing spray, the bewildering noise of the cataract, your prostrate and impending attitude, and the tremor of the very rock on which you

"The exploration of the inferior regions of the cataract is attended by some hazard and much difficulty; but the thirst for the romanesque and sublime has overcome all obstacles, and led the ardent youth, the dauntless traveller, and the philosopher, a perilous pilgrimage along the slippery margin of storming eddies, beneath impending rocks, amidst jarring elements, to the foot of the deluging torrents, and even to penetrate several feet behind the concave sheet of the headlong waters. It eminently requires fortitude and self-possession to make this progress. The rocks over which we advance are sharp, broken, and excessively slippery, owing to the perpetual moisture they acquire from the oozing crevices of the superincumbent cliffs and the spray, so that one inadvertent faux-pas might plunge a victim into the whirling and boiling vortex of the Falls. The danger is considerably increased by the terror arising from the stentorian thunders of the tumbling floods, that ever resound from side to side of the humid cavern, and seem to shake the firm rock to its foundation. The difficulty experienced in breathing, from the combined moisture and compression of the air, the impossibility of hearing or being heard, the dizziness produced by the falling waters, the dimly-discovered snakes and reptiles around, the whirl, the wind, the roar, all combine most powerfully to affect the soul, to overwhelm at once the senses and the imagination, and baffle all powers of description.

Immediately at the base of the Falls, the raging waters are lashed into one thick mass of froth and foam of dazzling whiteness; but their surface farther down becomes comparatively still, though ever whirling and boiling, and exhibits a totally different appearance from that of any other part of the river. The labouring stream seems inwardly convulsed, heaving and throbbing in dark and bubbling whirlpools, as if it threatened every moment to eject some of the mystic terrors of the deep. This effect is ascribed by Professor Dwight of the United States to the reaction of the ascending

*Bouchette's British Dominions in North America, i. 143.

waters. Precipitated bodily to an extraordinary depth
by their own prodigious gravity, and the force of their
impulsion, and involving in them a quantity of fixed
air, they reascend to the surface in a struggling career,
checked by the weight of the superincumbent water.
'The noise of the Falls is truly grand, commanding,
and majestic. It is very variable in its loudness,
being essentially influenced by the state of the atmo-
sphere, the direction of the wind, and the position of
the listener. It is sometimes scarcely audible within
three or four miles; and at others it may be heard at
York, on the opposite shores of Lake Ontario, a distance
of forty-six miles.'

person consulted by Hall, that the fall receded at the rate of a yard per annum, and this received the sanction of the son of Mr Bakewell, the well-known geologist. Mr Lyell, however, made such inquiries as satisfied him that one foot per annum was nearer the actual rate of the retrogression. The matter, after all, must depend very much upon the nature of the rock which forms the substratum at different points. In the early part of the process, the basis rock was of a harder kind, and the wearing would be slower accordingly, as it will in time be slower again, when the fall recedes beyond the point where the shale forms the base of the precipice. The obvious reason why the Falls assume a curved or horse-shoe form, is the fact, that the greatest volume of water is always in the centre of a stream, and this evidently leads to the great narrowing of the river channel from the fall downwards.

The configuration of the ground suggests a curious inference regarding the history of the Niagara Falls. The table-land-over the surface of which the river flows for fifteen miles, and through which its channel is cut for other seven to the depth of from two to three The greater elevation of the plateau towards the north, hundred feet-terminates at Queenstown in an abrupt indicates that the above-fall portion of the river forcliff ranging east and west, and facing towards Lake merly occupied a higher bed. There remain actual Ontario. Below this point, the course of the stream is memorials of this circumstance, in certain patches of a over a low flat country, with a very slight descent. The fluviatile alluvium, or river deposit, which are found most superficial observers unavoidably contemplate the close to the present fall, and in places farther down. A deep channel of seven miles as the work of the river portion of this deposit rests upon Goat Island, at thirty-. itself; and the idea receives confirmation of the most eight or forty feet above the top of the fall; a terracedecided kind from the fact, that the waterfall is con-like portion is deposited on each side of the river, at an tinually, though slowly, wearing away the rock. The altitude so coincident as to show that they originally common belief of the country people therefore is, that formed one uninterrupted bed. In this alluvium are the fall was originally at Queenstown, and will in time found, united with remains of the extinct mastodon, get back to Lake Erie, which will consequently be shells of the genera Unio, Cyclas, Planorbis, and others emptied, and become dry land. usually found in fresh water, clearly proving that it is a river or lake deposit. Three similar terraces exist near by, at somewhat lower levels, indicating rests which the river made in the process of depression which necessarily accompanied that of recession. Mr Lyell extended this interesting class of observations, by discovering other patches of ancient river alluvium at two several places. They contained shells of the same genera. These facts,' he says, appear conclusive as to the former extension of a more elevated valley, four miles at least below the Falls; and at this point the old river-bed must have been so high, as to be capable of holding back the waters which covered all the patches of fluviatile sand and gravel, including that of Goat Island.' He adds,' By exploring the banks of the Niagara above the Falls, I satisfied myself that if the river should continue to cut back the ravine still further southwards, it would leave here and there, near the verge of the precipice and its islands, strata of sand and loam, with fresh-water shells similar to those here described.'

Geologists have examined the district, and fully confirm these popular observations. Our countryman, Mr Lyell, has given it his especial attention; and in his "Travels in North America,' has introduced some curious speculations on the subject. It appears, from the inquiries of Mr Hall, geologist for the state of New York, that the table-land is composed of nearly horizontal strata of the Silurian formation, the inclination being from Queenstown back to Lake Erie, at the rate of about twenty-five feet in a mile. It may be remarked that, the land being highest at the cliff above Queenstown, the fall must have been considerably more lofty and grand when at that point than it is at present. Indeed there is another circumstance to be here taken into account namely, that the space over which the river now runs between the fall and Queenstown, would also be an addition to the height of the fall. We may therefore suppose it to have been at first upwards of three hundred feet high-a stupendous altitude for the descent of such a volume of water. What chiefly has tended to the wearing away of the channel, is the peculiar arrangement of the strata at this place. The superficial beds are a hard limestone, calculated to wear away very slowly; but underneath these are deep beds of soft shale, which rapidly yield to the force of the water. The river, pouring over the limestone, makes little impression upon it; but, falling upon the shale below, it readily makes a great abyss for the reception of its maddened waters, while the spray, driven by the wind against the wall behind, scoops out a recess in that direction, thus taking away the support of the limestone above, and preparing it for crumbling away in considerable masses. Such is actually the way in which the cataract recedes. There was a great fall of rock in 1815, and another in 1828, causing very considerable changes in the appearance of the falling waters. In the year before the one last mentioned, Captain Basil Hall conversed with a settler who had lived on the spot thirty-six years, and who had witnessed many such changes. In a country so recently settled, we have unfortunately very short and imperfect records to trust to; but it so happens that, so far back as 1697, a missionary called Father Hannepin published a drawing he had taken of the Falls, and from it we find that there was then a third fall, crossing the direction of the other two, and caused by the opposition of a rock which does not now exist. It was the belief of the old

Mr Lyell sees great difficulties in the way of coming even to an approximate conjecture as to the time that has elapsed since the cataract was at Queenstown; but remarks that, if the recession proceeds at an average rate of a foot per annum, a lapse of 35,000 years is implied for the whole process. Viewing the position of the strata, their coming to an escarpment at Queenstown, and their being partially covered, not only by the alluvial patches and terraces, but, below these, by a bed of drift, or ancient boulder clay, of marine origin, and referable to a time when ice prevailed more extensively over the land than now, he speculates on a succession of changes in the order in which he imagines they may have happened. The first event to which we must recur, is the superficial waste or denudation of the older stratified rocks, all of which have remained nearly undisturbed and horizontal from the eve of their formation beneath the sea to a comparatively modern period. That they were all of marine origin, is proved by their imbedded corals and shells. They at length emerged slowly, and portions of their edges were removed by the action of the waves and currents, by which cliffs were formed at successive heights, especially where hard limestones were incumbent on soft shales. After this denudation, the whole region was again gradually submerged, and this event took place during the glacial period. . . . The country was then buried under a load