I proceeded to my friends, where a kind and comfortable home awaited me.  Mr. C. possesses a residence which is certainly one of the most romantic domiciles in the world.  The house stands on a small lawn upon a point overhanging the rapids, and about half a mile above the Horse-Shoe Fall.  The garden is behind, washed by a fine branch of the river, which encircles a wild and thickly wooded island, and on every side new and interesting prospects appear.  The river is a mile across, and of great depth, and, for the same distance above the Falls, is one sheet of foam.  We sauntered down in the evening to the river side, and the rapids lost nothing by a closer inspection.  My bedroom looked directly upon them; I could watch the smoke of the Fall, as I lay on my pillow; and with the wild roar of the cataract sounding in my ears, I closed my first day at Niagara.  The following morning proved fine, and we devoted the forenoon, of course, to the Falls.  Lake Erie had just broken up, and the icebergs came crushing down the rapids, in a way highly interesting.  My friends being quite at home in all the mazes of the river side, conducted me by a wild and rugged route to the edge of the Table-rock, when, upon emerging from a tangled brake, I beheld the Horse-shoe or great British Fall, pouring down its volume of ice and water, at the distance of a few feet from where we stood.  The rock felt to me as though it vibrated, and a large mass did in fact lately give way, soon after a party had retired from the precarious stance.  It is limestone, full of ugly fissures and rents.  A narrow wooden staircase conducts adventurous travellers to the bottom of the Fall, where a sort of entrance is generally effected to a short distance under the sheet, and for which performance a certificate in due form is served out.  The stair was at this time under repair, and the accumulation of ice below perfectly reconciled me to wave pretensions to such slippery honours.  At some distance below the Fall, and opposite to the American staircase, there is a ferry, to which a safe and most romantic carriage-road has been lately formed, out of the solid rock, at no small labour and expense.  When a similar accommodation shall have been provided upon the American side, it is expected to prove a lucrative concern, but at the present foot-passengers only can be landed in the States.  The little skiff had just put off, with a party from the Canada shores, and got involved in streams of ice, in a way somewhat hazardous, and which rendered it impossible for the boatmen to return.  The scene from the ferry is indeed magnificent, the Horseshoe, the American Fall, and Goat Island being all in view, with the great pool or basin eddying in fearful and endless turmoil.  In the evening I walked up the river side towards the village of Chippeway, to visit a natural curiosity upon Mr. C.’s estate.  A spring surcharged with sulphuretted hydrogen gas rises within a few paces of the river.  A small building is erected over it, and when a candle is applied to a tube in a barrel, which encloses the spring, a brilliant and powerful light is evolved.  Close adjoining are the remains of extensive mills burnt by the Americans during last war.  The water privilege is great, and machinery to any extent might be kept in play.—­Quart.  Journ. of Agriculture.