The chief effect of the absence of a motion long after its bed has lost all inclination. declivity is a slower movement of the stream, and a more winding course, owing to the

aqueous particles being more susceptible of divergence from their original direction by impediments in their path. Hence the tortuous character of the water-courses, chiefly arising from the streams meeting with levels after

descending inclined planes, which so slackens their speed that they are easily diverted from a right-onward direction by natural obstacles, to which the force of their current is inferior. The Mæander was famed in classical antiquity for its mazy course, descending from the pastures of Phrygia, with many involutions, into the vine-clad province of the Carians, which it divided from Lydia near a plain properly called the Mæandrian, where the bed was winding in a remarkable degree. From the name of this river we have our word meandering, as applied to erratic streams.

This circumstance increases prodigiously the extent of their channels, and renders their navigation tedious, but the absence of that velocity of the current which would make it difficult is a compensation, while a larger portion of the earth enjoys the benefit of their waters. The sources of the Mississippi are only 1250 miles from its mouth, following a straight line, but 3200 miles, pursuing its real path; and the Forth is actually three times the length of a straight line drawn from its rise to its termination. The rivers which flow through flat alluvial plains frequently exhibit great sinuosities, their The Moselle, after a waters returning nearly to the same point, after an extensive tour. curved course of seventeen miles, returns to within a few hundred yards of the same spot; and a steamer on the Mississippi, after a sail of twenty-five or thirty miles, is brought round again, almost within hail of the place where it was two or three hours before. In high floods, the waters frequently force a passage through the isthmuses which are thus formed, converting the peninsulas into islands, and forming a nearer route for the navigator to pursue. By the "grand cut off" on the Mississippi, vessels now pass from one point to another in half a mile, in order to accomplish which they had formerly a distance of twenty miles to traverse.

Rivers receive a peculiar impress from the geological character of the districts through

which they flow. Those of primary or transition countries, where sudden declivities abound, are bold and rapid streams, with steep and high banks, and usually pure waters, owing to the surface not being readily abraded, generally emptying themselves by a single mouth which is deep and unobstructed. The streams of secondary and alluvial districts flow with slow but powerful current, between low and gradually descending banks, which, being composed of soft rocks or alluvial grounds, are easily worn away by the waters, and hence great changes are effected in their channels, and a peculiar colour is given to their streams by the earthy particles with which they are charged. Many rivers have their names from this last circumstance. The Rio Negro, or Black River, which flows into the Amazon, is so called on account of the dark colour of its waters, which are of an amber hue wherever it is shallow, and dark brown wherever the depth is great. The names of the two great streams which unite to form the Nile, the Bahr-el-Abiad, or White River, from the Mountains of the Moon, and the Bahr-el-Azrek, or Blue River, from Abyssinia, refer to the colour which they receive from the quantity of earth with which they are impregnated. The united rivers, for some distance after their junction, preserve their colours distinct. This is the case likewise with the Rhine and the Moselle, the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa. The Upper Mississippi is a transparent stream, but assumes the colour of the Missouri upon joining that river, the mud of which is as copious as the water can hold in suspension, and of a white soapy hue. The Ohio brings into it a flood of a greenish colour. The bright and dark red waters of the Arkansas and Red River afterwards diminish the whiteness derived from the Missouri, and the volume of the Lower Mississippi bears along a tribute of vegetable soil, collected from the most distant quarters, and of the most various kind, the marl of the Rocky and the clay of the Black Mountains the earth of the Alleghanies and the red-loam washed from the hills at the sources of the Arkansas and the Red River. Mr. Lyell states that water flowing at the rate of three inches per second will tear up fine clay; six inches per second, fine sand; twelve inches per second, fine gravel; and three feet per second, stones of the size of an egg. He remarks, likewise, that the rapidity at the bottom of a stream is every where less than in any part above it, and is greatest at the surface; and that in the middle of the stream the particles at the top move swifter than those at the sides. The ease with which running water bears along large quantities of sand, gravel, and pebbles, ceases to surprise, when we consider that the specific gravity of rocks in water is much less than in air.

It is chiefly in primary and transition countries that the rivers exhibit those sudden descents, which pass under the general denomination of falls, and form either cataracts or rapids. They occur in secondary regions, but more rarely, and the descent is of a more gentle description. The falls are generally found in the passage of streams from the primitive to the other formations. Thus the line which divides the primitive and alluvial formations on the coast of the United States, is marked by the falls or rapids of its rivers, while none occur in the alluvion below. Cataracts are formed by the descent of a river over a precipice which is perpendicular, or nearly so, and depend, for their sublimity, upon the height of the fall, and the magnitude of the stream. Rapids are produced by the occurrence of a steeply-inclined plane, over which the flood rushes with great impetuosity, yet without being projected over a precipice. The great rivers of England - the Thames, Trent, and Severn- exhibit no example of either cataract or rapid, but pursue a generally even and noiseless course; though near their sources, while yet mere brooks and rivulets, most of our home streams present these features in a very miniature manner. A true rapid occurs in the course of the Shannon, just above Limerick, where the river, forty feet deep, and three hundred yards wide, pours its body of water through and above a congregation of huge rocks and stones, extending nearly half

a mile, and becomes quite unnavigable. Inglis had never heard of
this rapid before arriving in its neighbourhood; but ranks it,
in grandeur and effect, above either the Welsh waterfalls,
or the Geisbach in Switzerland. The river Adige, in the
Tyrol, near Meran, rushes, with resistless force and
deafening noise, down a descent nearly a mile in
length, between quiet, green, pastoral banks, present-
ing one of the most magnificent spectacles to be met
with in Europe. The celebrated cataracts of the Nile
are, more properly speaking, rapids, as there is no
considerable perpendicular fall of the river;
but for a hundred miles at Wady Hafal, the
second cataract reckoning upwards, there
is a succession of steep descents, and a
multitude of rocky islands, among which
the river dashes amid clouds of foam, and
is tossed in perpetual eddies. It is along.
the course of the American rivers how-
ever that the most sublime and imposing
rapids are found, rendered so by the
great volumes of water contained in their
channels. The more remarkable are
those of the St. Lawrence, the chief of
which, called the Coteau du Luc, the
Cedars, the Split Rock, and the Cascades,
occur in succession for about nine miles
above Montreal and the junction of the
Ottawa. At the rapid of St. Anne, on
the latter river, the more devout of the
Canadian voyageurs are accustomed to
land, and implore the protection of the
patron saint on their perilous expeditions,
before a large cross at the village that
bears her name. The words of a popular
song have familiarised English ears with this
habit of the hardy boatmen :-

66

Faintly as tolls the evening chime,

Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.

Soon as the woods on shore look dim,

We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn.

Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,

The Rapids are near, and the daylight's past.

"Utawa's tide! this trembling moon

Shall see us float over thy surges soon.

Saint of this green isle hear our prayers,

Oh grant us cool heavens and favouring airs.

Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,

The Rapids are near, and the daylight's past."

The Kaaterskill Falls here represented are celebrated in America, for their picturesque beauty. The waters which

Kaaterskill Falls.

supply these cascades flow from two small lakes in the Catskill Mountains, on the West Bank of the Hudson. The upper cascade falls one hundred and seventy-five feet, and a few rods below the second pours its waters over a precipice eighty feet high, passing into a picturesque ravine, the banks of which rise abruptly on each side to the height of a thousand to fifteen hundred feet.

In the grandeur of their cataracts, also, the American rivers far surpass those of other countries, though several falls on the ancient continent have a greater perpendicular height, and are magnificent objects. In Sweden, the Gotha falls about 130 feet at Trolhetta, the

Falls of Trolhetta.

greatest fall in Europe of the same body of

water. The river is the only outlet of a lake, a hundred miles in length and fifty in breadth, which receives no fewer than twenty-four rivers; the water glides smoothly on, increasing in rapidity, but quite unruffled, until it reaches the verge of the precipice; it then darts over it in one broad sheet, which is broken by some jutting rocks, after a descent of about forty feet. Here begins a spectacle of great grandeur. The moving mass is tossed from rock to rock, now heaving itself up in yellow foam, now boiling and tossing in huge eddies, growing whiter and whiter in its descent, till, completely fretted into one beautiful sea of snowy froth, the spray, rising in dense clouds, hides the abyss into which the torrent dashes; but when momentarily cleared away by the wind, a dreadful gulf is revealed, which the eye cannot fathom. Upon the arrival of a visitor at Trolhetta, a log of wood is sent down the fall, by persons who expect a trifle for the exhibition. It displays the resistless power of the element. The log, which is of gigantic dimensions, is tossed like a feather upon the surface of the water, and is borne to the foot almost in an instant. In Scotland, the falls of its rivers are seldom of great size; but the rocky beds over which they roar and dash in foam and spray -the dark precipitous glens into which they rush-and the frequent wildness of the whole scenery around, are compensating features. The most remarkable instances are

the Upper and Lower Falls of Foyers, near Loch Ness. At the upper fall, the river precipitates itself, at three leaps, down as many precipices, whose united depth is about 200 feet; but, at the lower, it makes a descent at once of 212 feet, and, after heavy rains, exhibits a grand appearance. The fall of the Rhine at Schaffhausen is only 70 feet; but the great mass of its waters, 450 feet in breadth, gives it an imposing character. The Teverone, near Tivoli, a comparatively small stream, is precipitated nearly 100 feet; and the Velino, near Terni, falls 300, which is generally considered the finest of the European cataracts. This "hell of waters," as Byron calls it, is of artificial construction. A channel was dug by the Consul Carius Dentatus in the year 274 B. C., to convey the waters to the precipice, but having become filled up by a deposition of calcareous matter, it was widened and depened by order of Pope Paul IV. "I saw," says Byron, "the Cascata del Marmore of Terni twice at different periods; once from the summit of the precipice, and again from the valley below. The lower view is far to be preferred, if the traveller has time for one only; but in any point of view, either from above or below, it is worth all the cascades and torrents of Switzerland put together."

Falls of Terni.

In the Alpine highlands, the Evanson descends upwards of 1200 feet, and the Orco forms a vertical cataract of 2400; but in these instances the quantity of water is small, and the chief interest is produced by the height from which it falls. At Staubbach, in the Swiss canton of Berne, a small stream descends 1400 feet, which is scattered almost entirely into spray before it reaches the bottom. Waterfalls appear upon their grandest scale in the American continent. They are not remarkable for the height of the precipices over which they descend, or for the picturesque forms of the rocky cliffs amid which they are precipitated, like the Alpine cataracts; but while these are usually the falls of streamlets merely, those of the western world are the rush of mighty rivers. The majority are in the northern part of the continent, but the greatest vertical descent of a considerable body of water is in the southern, at the Falls of Tequendama, where the river of Funza disembogues from the elevated plain or valley of Santa Fe de Bogota. This valley is at a greater height above the level of the sea than the summit of the great St. Bernard, and is surrounded by lofty mountains. It appears to have been formerly the bed of an extensive lake, whose waters were drained off when the narrow passage was forced through which the Funza river now descends from the elevated enclosed valley towards the bed of the Rio Magdalena. Respecting this physical occurrence Gonzalo Ximenes de Quesada, the conqueror of the country, found the following tradition disseminated among the people, which probably