DESCRIPTIONS OF NIAGARA; SELECTED FROM VARIOUS TRAVELLERS; WITH ORIGINAL ADDITIONS, BY WILLIAM BARHAM. "One only object fill'd eye, ear, and thought." SOUTHEY'S MADOC. GRAVESEND: PUBLISHED BY THE COMPILER, 6, ELIZABETH PLACE, PREFACE. THE subject of this volume has so long attracted the interest and excited the admiration of the lovers of nature, that a formal preface seems almost unnecessary. I shall simply state the principal reason which has urged me to publish this book. It is this; that, although there are already before the public many descriptions of NIAGARA; yet (so far as I am aware) there is no work in which are collected the various descriptions, separately published by those who have visited this incomparable Cataract. For the original suggestion of such a work, and indeed for many of the descriptions here presented, I am indebted to a friend, who, though he has never visited the Falls, has collected a variety of extracts from the different describers of NIAGARA. The same friend has kindly enriched my volume with some verses of his own, which, I think, will be much admired by my readers, and which form one of the principle articles in the conclusion of the ensuing pages, 1 1 |