Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Chapter XVII
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upper part of the valley, and see far below and far
away a dark chasm partly hidden by branches of trees;
through this the river Hows, and as it comes nearer
reaches a wider opening of the gorge, advancing
towards the edge of a precipice, over which it rolls
towards a gully of its own cutting, and then pitches
down an unknown depth: for the mass of falling water
plunges into a white cloud that hides the bottom of the
dark abyss, and rises up high into the sunshine. This
is the perpetual spray, the reeking, or " riukan," from
which the name of the fall is derived. You may,
however, estimate the depth, for looking straight down the
gray wall to which you are clinging, you see that it
terminates in dark, quiet water. This is the same that a
few minutes since Avas thundering; and tearing down so
furiously, and partly rising again to form the
ever-lianging, though ever-falling, cloud of waterdrops.
Murray says that the "Estimates of the height of
the Riukan Foss are various; the most probable is
about 900 feet." This, I think, is an over-estimate:
500 feet appears to me much nearer the truth. The
part of the wall on which I halted is fully as much
above the top of the fall as the whole height of the
fall itself. According to Murray’s estimate, therefore,
there was 1,800 feet of precipice below; according to
my own, about 1,000 and some 400 or 500 feet above.
This wall is not absolutely perpendicular, but is within
a very few degrees of it.
On arriving at the end of the Marie Stige, and
landing upon the platform of rock where the five
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