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312 Niagara is seen to advantage in a severe winter. It is impossible for ice to accumulate in front of the Canadian falls, but as vast masses are formed all about the American, the unclear between the two becomes for greater, & more striking than in summer. According to the tip was usually given the American is only one third the length of the Canadian, but this measurement gives no idea of the difference between the two, which lies chiefly with fact that the sheet of water which comes over the former is so thin, that it is everywhere broken, & while with foam; while in the Canadian fall it comes over in to deep & solid a mass, that it is unclear throughout the whole horseshoe. It is perfectly smooth, & there is not a bubble visible upon it. Every piece of wood that comes over seems to glide down its surface; the water itself being so unbroken as to appear almost as if it were stationary, & had no movement in it. I do not know any other grand object of value, where the unclear felt at the moment in what is unclear in so much unclear by what is not seen, as in these great Falls. They are grand in themselves to the eye; but how much grander does the sight become, when it is accompanied by the thought that what you see is the collected outflow of all those vast Lakes those been taking you so many days to steam over, & along, Lakes on all of which you lost sight of the Land, just as if you had been on the Ocean itself, Lakes larger than European kingdoms. Here you have before you gliding over that precipice, all the water these great seas, fed by a thousand streams, are unable to retain within their own basins.