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Story
June 17, 1816
Kentucky Gazette
Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky
What is this article about?
Article highlights two underappreciated natural wonders in the US: Toccoa Falls in Franklin County, Georgia, surpassing Niagara in height with prismatic spray; and the 900-foot Table Mountain precipice in Pendleton District, South Carolina, which induces vertigo and awe in visitors.
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NATURAL WONDERS.
It is very surprising that two of the greatest natural curiosities in the world are within the United States, and yet scarcely known to the best information of our geographers and naturalists. The one is a beautiful waterfall, in Franklin county, Georgia; the other is a stupendous precipice in Pendleton district, S. Carolina. They are both faintly mentioned in the late edition of Morse's geography, but not as they merit. The Toccoa fall is much higher than the falls of Niagara. The column of water is propelled beautifully over a perpendicular rock and when the stream is full it passes down the steep without being broken. All the prismatic effect, seen at Niagara, illustrates the spray of Toccoa.
The Table-Mountain in Pendleton district, S. Carolina, is an awful precipice of 900 feet. Many persons reside within five, seven, or ten miles of this grand spectacle, who have never the while had curiosity or taste enough to visit it. It is now, however, occasionally visited by curious travellers, and sometimes by men of science. Very few persons who have once cast a glimpse into the almost boundless abyss, can again exercise sufficient fortitude, to approach the margin of the chasm. Almost every one on looking over, involuntarily falls to the ground senseless, nerveless and helpless; and would inevitably be precipitated, and dashed to atoms, were it not for the measures of caution and security that have always been deemed indispensable to a safe indulgence of the curiosity of the visitor or spectator. Every one on proceeding to the spot, whence it is usual to gaze over the wonderful deep, has in his imagination a limitation graduated by a reference of distances with which his eye has been familiar.—But in a moment eternity, as it were. is presented to his astounded senses. and he is instantly overwhelmed. His whole system is no longer subject to his volition or his reason. and he falls like a mass of lead, obedient only to the common laws of mere matter He then revives and in a wild delirium, surveys a scene, which for a while he is unable to define by description or limitation.
How strange it is that the Toccoa fall, and Table-mountain are not more familiar to Americans! Either of them would distinguish any state or empire in Europe!—True Amer
It is very surprising that two of the greatest natural curiosities in the world are within the United States, and yet scarcely known to the best information of our geographers and naturalists. The one is a beautiful waterfall, in Franklin county, Georgia; the other is a stupendous precipice in Pendleton district, S. Carolina. They are both faintly mentioned in the late edition of Morse's geography, but not as they merit. The Toccoa fall is much higher than the falls of Niagara. The column of water is propelled beautifully over a perpendicular rock and when the stream is full it passes down the steep without being broken. All the prismatic effect, seen at Niagara, illustrates the spray of Toccoa.
The Table-Mountain in Pendleton district, S. Carolina, is an awful precipice of 900 feet. Many persons reside within five, seven, or ten miles of this grand spectacle, who have never the while had curiosity or taste enough to visit it. It is now, however, occasionally visited by curious travellers, and sometimes by men of science. Very few persons who have once cast a glimpse into the almost boundless abyss, can again exercise sufficient fortitude, to approach the margin of the chasm. Almost every one on looking over, involuntarily falls to the ground senseless, nerveless and helpless; and would inevitably be precipitated, and dashed to atoms, were it not for the measures of caution and security that have always been deemed indispensable to a safe indulgence of the curiosity of the visitor or spectator. Every one on proceeding to the spot, whence it is usual to gaze over the wonderful deep, has in his imagination a limitation graduated by a reference of distances with which his eye has been familiar.—But in a moment eternity, as it were. is presented to his astounded senses. and he is instantly overwhelmed. His whole system is no longer subject to his volition or his reason. and he falls like a mass of lead, obedient only to the common laws of mere matter He then revives and in a wild delirium, surveys a scene, which for a while he is unable to define by description or limitation.
How strange it is that the Toccoa fall, and Table-mountain are not more familiar to Americans! Either of them would distinguish any state or empire in Europe!—True Amer
What sub-type of article is it?
Curiosity
Extraordinary Event
What themes does it cover?
Nature
What keywords are associated?
Toccoa Falls
Table Mountain
Natural Wonders
Waterfall
Precipice
Niagara Comparison
Vertigo Effect
Where did it happen?
Franklin County, Georgia; Pendleton District, S. Carolina
Story Details
Location
Franklin County, Georgia; Pendleton District, S. Carolina
Story Details
Two natural wonders in the US are described: Toccoa Falls, a waterfall higher than Niagara with unbroken flow and prismatic spray; and Table Mountain, a 900-foot precipice that overwhelms viewers with vertigo, causing them to faint at the edge.