02 September, 1750

Swedish naturalist who visited French Canada in 1780-81

At the Niagara Falls: When you are at the Fall and look up the river you may see that the river above the Fall is everywhere exceeding steep, almost as the side of a hill. When all this water comes to the very Fall, there it throws itself down perpendicular! It is beyond all belief the surprise when you see this! You cannot see it without being quite terrified. To behold so vast a quantity of water falling headlong from a surprising height...

From the place where the water falls there rise abundance of vapours, like the greatest and thickest smoak. These vapours rise high in the air when it is calm, but are dispers'd by the wind when it blows hard. If you go nigh to this vapour or fog, or if the wind blows it on you, it is so penetrating that in a few minutes you will be as wet as if you had been under water...

Every day when the sun shines you see here from 10 o'clock in the morning to 2 in the afternoon, below the Fall and under you...a glorious rainbow and sometimes two rainbows, one within the other. I was so happy to be at the Fall on a fine clear day, and it was with great delight I view'd this rainbow, which had almost all the colours you see in a rainbow in the air. The more vapours, the brighter and clearer is the rainbow.