From the falls to Queens-Town, the nearest place to which shipping approach the falls, the river is confined within a chasm in the rocks, one hundred and fifty feet deep, and to all appearance cut out by the force of the water. Queens- Town is a neat village, and has all the appearance of a sea-port : it is not uncommon to see at that place several brigs of one hundred tons burthen, and many smaller vessels. The territory opposite to Queens-Town, on the east side, is a reservation belonging to the State of New-York, which the Legislature directed the Surveyor-General to lay out into small lots, for the accommodation of settlers. This place is the key to the trade of the western lakes, and numbers of teams are daily employed between it and Chippaway : the distance by the carrying place now in use, on the Brittish side, is eleven miles: the carrying place formerly in use, on the American side, was only six miles ; but the mountain forming the falls is more abrupt.

Some persons, interested in the countries beyond the falls, had this interruption to the navigation examined by a very respectable engineer, for the purpose of discovering the practicability of making a canal to open the navigation of the western lakes. The fall

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was found to be three hundreil and twenty feet from Steedman's Landing, above the falls, to Queens-Town Landing below: the distance to be cut did not exceed four miles, nearly three of which is on level with the navigable part of the river above the falls.