[8] This is an Iroquois word, said to signify the thunder of waters. The word, as pronounced by the Senecas, is Oniágarah. For additional information on this subject, see _Notes on the Iroquois_, p. 453. The etymology of the word has not, however, been fully examined. It is clear the pronunciation of the word in Goldsmith's day was Niagára.
What has been said by Goldsmith, and repeated by others, respecting the destructive influence of the Rapids above to ducks and water-fowl is imaginary--at least, as to the American sheet. So far from it, I saw the wild ducks swim down the Rapid, as if in pursuit of some article of food, and then rise and fly out at the brink, and repeat the descent, as if delighted with the gift of wings, which enabled them to sport over such frightful precipices without danger. I found among the debris in the abyss, pieces of hornstone, and crystals of calcareous spar, radiated quartz, sulphuret of zinc, and sulphate of lime. Its geology is best explained by observing that the river, in falling over the precipice of the Niagara ridge into the basin of Lake Ontario, leaps over horizontal strata of limestone, slate, and red sandstone. In this respect, nothing can be more simple and plain. It is magnitude alone that makes the cataract sublime.
On returning to Buffalo, I found the lake rapidly discharging its ice, which had been recently broken up by a storm of wind; and, while awaiting the motion of the steamer, I was joined by Captain D. B. Douglass, Professor of Engineering at West Point, who had been appointed topographer and astronomer of the expedition. We embarked on the 6th of May, at nine o'clock in the morning, in the steamer Walk-in-the-Water, an elegant and conveniently-planned vessel, with a low-pressure Fulton engine. This boat had been put upon the lake two years before, when it made a trip to Michilimackinac, and was, indeed, the initial boat in the history of steam navigation on the Lakes. We embarked at Black Rock, and it was necessary to use a tow-line, drawn by oxen on the shore, to enable the boat to ascend the Rapids. This Captain Rodgers, a gentlemanly man, facetiously termed his hornbreeze. The oxen were dismissed a short distance before reaching the mouth of Buffalo Creek, where we reached the level of Lake Erie, five hundred and sixty feet above the tide-waters of the Hudson River.[9] We were favored with clear weather, and, a part of the time, with a fair wind. The boat touched at Erie, at the mouth of Grand River, at Cleveland, and at Portland, in Sandusky Bay, on coming out of which we passed Cunningham Island, and the Put-in-Bay Islands, from a harbor in which Perry issued to achieve his memorable naval victory on the 10th of September, 1813. Passing through another group of islands, called the Three Sisters, we entered the mouth of the Detroit River late on the afternoon of the 8th, just as the light became dim and shadowy. The scale of these waters is magnificent.