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HISTORY OF

hundred feet in breadth, as smooth as a lake, and without any visiblestream, exhibiting a striking contrast to the roaring of the torrent below.This smoothness of the water continues till it bursts at once into the ca-taracts of Trolhaetta, called the Gulfs of Hell, which render all farthernavigation impossible. The bed of the river is solid rock ; the banks areperpendicular; and, at the beginning of the fall, several granite islands,thinly strewed with underwood, junipers, and stubbed pines, rife in themidst of the stream, forming small straits, down which the water daffieswith increasing impetuosity.

From the first opening of the fall to the part where the river againbecomes navigable, is about two miles ; but if does not roll through thewhole of this space in one uniform sheet of water, or with equal rageand violence. It is divided into sour principal cataracts, separatedby whirlpools and eddies, and forming, during the whole way, themost awful scenes, ever varying, and too sublime to be accurately de-scribed. The perpendicular height of all the falls, considered as one, isabout one hundred feet. From this description, the reader will readilyperceive the extreme difficulty of rendering these cataracts navigable;and it was even through the midst of them that the daring projector at-tempted to form a canal, by the works I ffiall now proceed to describe.

Just “above the first cataract, called Prastenkesdet fall, several damswere constructed which turned the stream, and left the main bed of theriver quite dry. In this part some rocks were cut through, and othersblown up; the bed was rendered level, and the cataract nearly turnedinto still water. To continue the navigation, an island of red granite,called Malg, which rises in the midst of the great cataract, was divided,and a canal formed through it of three hundred and forty feet in length,including a sluice of thirty feet. The depth of the fall, and of course ofthe perforated rock, is twenty-three feet four inches ; the breadth eigh-teen feet. This is called Ekerbrad sluice, and was designed to consist ofJwo locks. At a small distance another canal was formed on the side of

the