HISTORY'S TREASURE

(This is an excerpt from the March 26, 1853 edition of the New York City newspaper "Illustrated News", which offers a fitting tribute to Little Falls 200th Anniversary. The article was discovered in an "Arts and Treasure's" store in Lake Placid and included a beautiful woodcut of Little Falls which has become this year's Celebration Logo. The paper was published for just one year and then sold to a Boston firm, Gleason's Pictorial which listed P. T. Barnum as a special partner.) - Gary VanVeghten, 2011

Little Falls is one of the most beautiful villages in our country, and it would be difficult to find a place where within so limited compass, so many attractions are centered. It is so called from a series of cascades, which the Mohawk River forms in finding its way to the meadows, which extend through the eastern valley. It is here that the stream, after reaching the eastern boundary of the fertile "German Flats" (a broad plain, which was once the bottom of a vast lake), rushes through the rocky pass cut by the current, and where the waters at some primeval date once found an exit through a rocky barrier. In order to facilitate the passage of boats, arriving at the end of the long level, on the Erie Canal, the shore has been cut away, walls erected, and sufficient space obtained to enable its waters to descend through a series of locks to its lower level. The railroad, which now passes through the place, forms, however a far more rapid means of transit.
The view of the Little Falls, which we present our readers, embraces the most beautiful portion of landscape scenery in its vicinity. In the channel many rocky islets may be observed. Their torn and ragged aspect indicates the action of a warring world of waters, far more terrible in its aspects than any which the river has been able to produce in more modern times, even when swelled by the deepest freshets.
It is, remarks a writer, doubly interesting to the spectator when at a single glance, he is enabled to fully contrast the triumph of art with the obstacles, which it has overcome. In passing through this dark, wild romantic gorge in a canal boat, we glide smoothly along upon a glassy surface, and descend from time to time, or are gently raised, from one level to another, by means of locks, and by the same element which is seen in all its wild power, rushing and roaring furiously below; nor is the view less striking, when witnessed from the railroad cars on the other side of the river, while darting with "lightening speed" through the fertile meadows which extend along the banks of the Mohawk, and at different levels below or above the falls.

On the southern bank of the river, at this place, there is a high hill in which there is a remarkable cave, and geological features here developed present a most attractive material to the scientific man. Quartz crystals of the most regular formation, and of the purest water, are found in abundance in the mica state (Little Falls Diamonds), whence they are washed by every rain.

One of the most striking objects, not of nature, but of art, which the traveler meets on the line of the canal and which is indeed one of the most beautiful works in the country is the celebrated marble aqueduct, 214 feet long, and 15 feet wide, which crosses the Mohawk River on large arches, bringing over a supply of water from the old canal (The Western Inland Navigation Canal), on the northern bank. The central arch has a span of not less than 70 feet.
From the most accurate account relating to Little Falls, which we have been able to obtain, we learn that the river here, by the two rapids, makes a descent of exactly 42 feet within the distance of two thirds of a mile. The canal makes that descent or lift by a series of 5 locks, each of 8 feet lift. Between the two (rapids) is a broad interval of smooth and deep water. Above there is a dam divided by an island (Hansen), over either branch of which the water pours in small cascades.
The romantic pass which opens through the ridge of mountains is about two miles in length, and of an average breadth of only 500 yards, while rough and woody hills rise on either side to the height of nearly 400 hundred feet. The rocks are deeply worn in this vicinity. One of these is a 2 and half feet in diameter, beginning at the top of a rock 30 feet above the present level of the river, and being broken below, admits the light to shine through it. Perforations of this nature are not rare, but it is seldom that so perfect a specimen is met with. They are caused by the attrition of pebbles and sand, revolved in the eddies of watercourses (Pot Holes). A very slight eddy. which turns but a few flint pebbles, not unfrequently wears an immense cavity in the hardest rock.