FALLS OF THE GENESEE.

[Illustration:  Falls of the Genesee.]

The Genesee is one of the most picturesque rivers of North America.  Its name is indeed characteristic:  the word Genesee being formed from the Indian for Pleasant Valley, which term is very descriptive of the river and its vicinity.  Its falls have not the majestic extent of the Niagara; but their beauty compensates for the absence of such grandeur.

The Genesee, the principal natural feature of its district, rises on the Grand Plateau or table-land of Western Pennsylvania, runs through New York, and flows into Lake Ontario, at Port Genesee, six miles below Rochester.  At the distance of six miles from its mouth are falls of 96 feet, and one mile higher up, other falls of 75 feet.[1] Above these it is navigable for boats nearly 70 miles, where are other two falls, of 60 and 90 feet, one mile apart, in Nunda, south of Leicester.  At the head of the Genesee is a tract six miles square, embracing waters, some of which flow into the gulf of Mexico, others into Chesapeake Bay, and others into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  This tract is probably elevated 1,600 or 1,700 feet above the tide waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

    [1] It may be as well here to quote the formation of Cataracts
        and Cascades, from Maltebrun’s valuable System of Universal
        Geography. “It is only the sloping of the land which can at first
        cause water to flow; but an impulse having been once communicated
        to the mass, the pressure alone of the water will keep it in
        motion, even if there were no declivity at all.  Many great rivers,
        in fact, flow with an almost interruptible declivity.  Rivers which
        descend from primitive mountains into secondary lands, often form
        cascades and cataracts.  Such are the cataracts of the Nile,
        of the Ganges, and some other great rivers, which, according to
        Desmarest, evidently mark the limits of the ancient land. 
        Cataracts are also formed by lakes:  of this description are the
        celebrated Falls of the Niagara; but the most picturesque falls
        are those of rapid rivers, bordered by trees and precipitous
        rocks.  Sometimes we see a body of water, which, before it arrives
        at the bottom, is broken and dissipated into showers, like the
        Staubbach, (see Mirror, vol. xiv. p. 385.); sometimes it forms
        a watery arch, projected from a rampart of rock, under which the
        traveller may pass dryshod, as the “falling spring” of Virginia;
        in one place, in a granite district, we see the Trolhetta, and the
        Rhine not far from its source, urge on their foaming billows
        among the pointed rocks; in another, amidst lands of a calcareous
        formation,