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Tremendous torrent! for an instant hush
"At Niagara Falls you can look up the river and see all the water flowing from lakes that appear more like great seas with many large rivers, the most blue magnificent part of which throwing itself over the Falls" The largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth "And the water comes dramatically to the brink — you cannot look at it without feeling stunned watching so vast an amount of desperate waters plunge to the bottom rock of the Falls and fly up to a great height in the air all in motion like a boiling cauldron" 3 thousand tons of water per second "And the water cascading down from that Olympic height foams in the ugliest way, as if lather or suds and makes an ominous thundering sound that is louder at times and believed by the Indians to warn of approaching bad weather; 'Oni-aw-ga-rah' is their name for this river which means Thunder of Waters" 15 million cubic feet of water per minute "And every day when the sun shines a rainbow appears below the Falls and under you, when you stand at the side of the Falls, a fine rainbow, and sometimes two rainbows, one on the outside of the other: the more vapors, the brighter and clearer it is; and when the wind blows the vapors away the rainbow disappears, then reappears as soon as new vapors come …" 5½ billion gallons of water per hour And now multicolored neon signs everywhere are greeting the tourists as they arrive: "The nearby village," a New Yorker writes in 1822, "abounds with mills, shops and foundries, iron works and a dramatically growing number of other factories Eternal clang and bawling hammers" BETHELEHEM STEEL UNION CARBIDE CARBORUNDUM HOOKER CHEMICAL COMPANY OCCIDENTAL PETROLEUM And now, at night, a thick fog rises from the Falls and creeps into the sleeping town and out over the land.
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