[Enclosure]

MEMORIAL

ADDRESSED TO

THE GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK,

AND

THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF CANADA

To ALONZO B. CORNELL, Governor of the State of New York:

The undersigned, citizens of several states and countries, address you by reason of the suggestion lately made by LORD DUFFERIN,⁶ that the State of New York and the Dominion of Canada should secure and hold, for the world’s good, the lands adjacent to the Falls of Niagara.

The Falls of Niagara are peculiarly exposed to disastrous injury. The heights of snow, the precipitous crags of great mountains, however they may be disfigured by man, can rarely be applied to uses which would destroy their sublimity. But should the islands and declivities of the Niagara River be stripped of their natural woods, and occupied for manufacturing and business purposes; should even the position, size, and form of the construction which the accommodation of visitors will call for, continue to be regulated solely by the pecuniary interests of numerous individual land-owners, the loss to the world will be great and irreparable. The danger may be measured by what has already occurred. The river’s banks are denuded of the noble forest by which they were originally covered, are degraded by incongruous and unworthy structures, made, for advertising purposes, willfully conspicuous and obstrusive, and the visitor’s attention is diverted from scenes to the influence of which he would gladly surrender himself, by demands for tolls and fees, and the offer of services most of which he would prefer to avoid.

Objects of great natural beauty and grandeur are among the most valuable gifts which Providence has bestowed upon our race. The contemplation of them elevates and informs the human understanding. They are instruments of education. They conduce to the order of society. They address sentiments which are universal. They draw together men of all races, and thus contribute to the union and the peace of nations.

The suggestion, therefore, that an object of this class so unparalleled as the Falls of Niagara should be placed under the joint guardianship of these two governments whose chief magistrates we have the honor to address, is a proper concern of the civilized world, and we respectfully ask that it may, by appropriate methods, be commended to the wise consideration of the Legislature of New York.⁷

A similar memorial has been addressed to the Governor General of Canada.⁸