At A Distance Of Three Hundred Yards,
And An Elevation Of As Many Feet, We Were Wetted With The Spray Which
Arose Like Small Rain From The Bottom:
The noise was deafening; and if
the river had been full, so as to cover its entire bed, it would have
been perhaps more awfully grand, but certainly not so beautiful.
After
winding through the cleft rocks about four hundred yards, it again falls
in one single sheet upwards of one hundred feet, and continues in a
succession of smaller falls about a quarter of a mile lower, where the
cliffs are of a perpendicular height, on each side exceeding one thousand
two hundred feet, the width at the edges about two hundred yards. From
thence it descends as before described until all sight of it is lost,
from the vast elevation of the rocky hills which it divides and runs
through. The different points of this deep glen seem as if they would fit
into the opposite fissures which form the smaller glens alternately on
either side. The whole is indeed a grand natural spectacle, and is an
indubitable mark of the vast convulsions which this country must at one
period have undergone. The rocks are all slate, the upper romanae of
which are of a light brown colour, rotten, and easily separated. Nearer
the base or surface of the water they are of a dark blue, and of a firmer
texture. The waters are quite discoloured, owing to the nature of the bed
over which they run, the soluble particles of coal among the slate
tinging them a dark brown.
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