dressing deerskins, until now, no longer young and beautiful, they can be seen betimes through the mist, trailing their white hair behind them and stretching out shriveled arms toward any mortal who ventures to visit the confines of their mystic dwelling-place. The Indian name for the Grand Falls - Patses-che-wan-means "The Narrow Place where the Water Falls." Like the native word Niagara,-"Thunder of Waters," this Indian designation contains a poetic and descriptive quality which it would be hard to improve.

1 After my departure for Labrador, I learned of another American expedition which proposed to visit the region of the Grand Falls during the summer of 1891. This enterprise, known as the Bowdoin College Labrador Expedition, under the leadership of Professor Leslie A. Lee, arrived at Rigoulette shortly after Professor Kenaston and myself. But owing to our delay in securing a crew and transportation inland, the four mem

On the left bank of the river above the Falls I found a small fir-tree, about four inches in diameter, which had recently been cut off with an ax at the height of four feet from the ground. An empty meat-can covered the stump, beneath which, secured to the trunk, was a bottle containing a written record of the fact that two members of the Bowdoin party had reached the spot about two weeks before us. I added to the written record a brief statement of the time and circumstances of our visit, and resealed the bottle.1

bers of the Bowdoin party who were despatched to visit the Falls reached the mouth of the Grand River first, and started on their journey up-stream a week in advance of us. The remainder of the Bowdoin students cruised along the coast in their schooner while their comrades were up the river. By the upsetting of one of their two boats, and the loss of provisions, instruments, etc., W. R. Smith and E. B. Young were

From the point where the river leaves the plateau and plunges into the deep pool below the Falls, its course for twenty-five miles is through one of the most remarkable cañons in the world. From the appearance of the sides of this gorge, and the zigzag line of the river, the indications are that the stream has slowly forced a channel through this rocky chasm, cutting its way back, foot by foot, from the edge of the plateau to the present position of the Falls. Recent investigators estimate that a period of six thousand years was required to form the gorge below Niagara Falls; or, in other words, that it has taken that length of time for the Falls to recede from their former position at Queenstown Heights to their present location. If it has taken this length of time for Niagara Falls to recede a distance of seven miles by the erosive power of the water acting on a soft shale rock supporting a stratum of limestone, the immensity of time involved by assuming that the Grand River cañon was formed in the same way is so great that the mind falters in contemplating it, especially when it is recognized that the escarpment of the Grand Falls is of hard gneissic rock. And yet no other explanation of the origin of this gorge is acceptable, unless, indeed, we can assume that at some former time a fissure occurred in the earth's crust as a result of igneous agencies, and that this fissure ran in a line identical with the present course of the river; in which case the drain age of the table-land, emptying into the Grand River, would follow the line of least resistance, and in the course of time excavate the fissure into the present proportions of the gorge.

The highest point reached by the expedition was in the vicinity of the Falls, where, according to the aneroid observations obtained, an elevation something in excess of 1500 feet was noted. Accepting the fact that results obtained by the aneroid barometer are not regarded as conclusive by careful observers, it is nevertheless apparent that the altitudes obtained can be taken as at least approximately correct, especially when it is borne in mind that a standard instrument was used, and corrections for temperature made in every instance. Thus it would appear that the generally accepted idea that the interior table-land of Labrador attains a

obliged to turn back. The two remaining members of the party, Austin Cary and D. M. Cole, advanced up the river in their boat to a point about ten miles above the "Big Hill," where we turned off for the interior plateau. From there they followed the bank of the river as closely as the nature of the country permitted, until they reached the Falls. They did not measure the height of the cataract. They are entitled to praise for their pluck in overcoming obstacles in their advance up the river, and for their courage and endurance on the retreat; for owing to the spreading of their camp

general elevation of over 2000 feet is erroneous, and future travelers will be called on to confirm or reject this important point relating to the configuration of the interior.

Having accomplished the main object of the trip, we set out on our return from this distant end of the expedition. A cold rain poured down during the first day's tramp across the barren plateau, and owing to a mistake in the course taken, we missed our former track, and became entangled in a lacustrine region, where we wandered for hours, unable to make any headway among the encompassing lakes. In the humid air landmarks became indistinct, and plunging on through bogs and over sharp rocks, cold, wet, and wearied with the weight of our packs, and with only enough flour remaining for one meal, our condition was unpleasant in the extreme. But dismal thoughts of being lost in this "great and terrible wilderness" incited us to unusual efforts, and at length, by making a long detour, a slight eminence was gained from which we could pick out a course in the desired direction. The storm, accompanied by lightning and thunder, continued during the night, and the most comfortless evening of the entire trip was passed on the bleak shores of a lake on this cheerless table-land. In the course of the following day we regained the canoe, and returning through the chain of lakes by the route previously used, we arrived in due time at the camp on the river, where Geoffrey was awaiting our return with some anxiety. Our trials were almost ended when we reached the river, and having embarked on it, the swift current carried us down-stream with exhilarating speed. Delaying only long enough to make a compass survey of the stream, in seven days the mouth of the river was reached without serious mishap.

A series of fierce gales detained us a week at Northwest River, and we did not arrive at Rigoulette until September 22. Sailing thence in a schooner, we soon reached Indian Harbor, a fishing-station on the coast, where we had the rare good fortune to secure passage on a Norwegian steamship, which brought us to St. John's, Newfoundland. From this point we took the regular passenger-steamer to New York city, where we arrived on October 15, thus completing a journey of over 4000 miles.

Henry G. Bryant.

fire, they lost camp, boat, and outfit, which rendered their escape down the river an experience of great hardship. Mr. Cary, in a letter to the writer, says: "We were given but thirty days from the vessel.. We were compelled to travel up to the limit of our strength, and leave scientific matters to the return trip; and then on the return trip it was all we could do to carry ourselves out of the country." Mr. Cary's account of his experiences was printed in a recent number of the "Bulletin of the American Geographical Society."— H. G. B.

HE coming of Antonín Dvořák to be director of the National Conservatory of Music is an episode in the history of musical culture in America which has unusual elements of interest. In the story of his life there is a tinge of romance which makes its perusal peculiarly delightful in this age of high average talent and prosaic plodding. It is a story of manifest destiny, of signal triumph over obstacle and discouraging environment. To rehearse it stimulates hope, reanimates ambition, and helps to keep alive popular belief in the reality of that precious attribute the name of which seems almost to have dropped out of the current musical vocabulary. Never in the history of the art did the critic of contemporary music have so little use for the word genius as he has had since the death of Chopin.

In Dvořák and his works is to be found a twofold encouragement for the group of native musicians whose accomplishments of late have seemed to herald the rise of a school of American composers. The eminent Bohemian has not only won his way to the exalted position which he occupies by an exercise of traits of mind and character that have always been peculiarly the admiration of American manhood, but he has also placed himself at the head (or if not at the head, then at least in the front rank) of the nationalists in music. I do not like the term, but I cannot think of a better. Dvořák's example turns attention again to the wealth of material which lies, never yet thoroughly assayed, scarcely touched indeed, in the vast mines of folk-music. The significance of his compositions lies in their blending together of popular elements and classical forms. These forms were as romantic, as free, in their origin as the people's songs and dances; and in the hands of genius they will always remain pliant and plastic, in spite of the operations of that too zealous conservatism which masquerades as classicism.

of fearful conservatives, by pointing the way to a multifarious development of forms. For the present the analysts will be obliged to label the new contents and the new vessels, but that will not matter. The phrase that music is a cosmopolite owing allegiance to no people and no tongue is become trite. It should not be misunderstood. Like tragedy in its highest conception, music is of all times and all peoples; but the more clearly the world comes to recognize how deep and intimate are the springs from which the emotional element in music flows, the more fully will it recognize that originality and power in the composer rest upon the use of dialects and idioms which are national or racial in origin and structure.

There is measureless comfort in the prospect which the example of Dvořák has opened up. It promises freshness and forcefulness of melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic contents, and newness and variety in the vehicles of utterance. It drives away the bugaboo of formlessness, which for so long a time has frightened the souls 1 The Bohemian language contains a sibilated r, the modification of the usual sound being indicated by the accent over the letter, as in the composer's name. The VOL. XLIV.-86.

The fate which gave the world a composer of music robbed Bohemia of a butcher. Franz Dvořák, the father of Antonín, was the village butcher and innkeeper at Nelahozeves (Mühlhausen), and his ambition touching his son, who was born on September 8, 1841, ran no higher than to bring him up so that he might take his place in what seemed the natural line of succession. In forming this resolve, which was broken down only after a long struggle, the father showed no appreciation of the extent and character of his son's musical gifts; yet in this he was scarcely blameworthy. A love for music, and a certain aptitude in the practice of the art, are the birthright of every Bohemian. "I had frequently been told," wrote Dr. Burney over a century ago, " that the Bohemians were the most musical people of Germany, or perhaps of all Europe; and an eminent German composer, now in London, had declared to me that if they enjoyed the same advantages as the Italians they would excel them." The great historian was skeptical in the premises, being convinced that "nature, though often partial to individuals in her distribution of genius and talents, is never so to a whole people," and being unable to account for climate (the influence of which in the direction indicated he was ready to confess) operating more in favor of music upon the Bohemians than on their neighbors, the Saxons and Moravians. Nevertheless, soon after his arrival in the country he was privileged to discover one cause of the preeminence of the Bohemians in music. At Czaslan he found a school full of "little children of both sexes, from six to ten or eleven years old, who effect of the accent is to cause the ř to be pronounced like the German letters "rsch." The name is therefore to be pronounced "Dvorschak."

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