Lord Dufferin, as his final gift to Canada and the
United States, has proposed that the Governments of New York and Ontario should combine to purchase the lands round the Falls of Niagara, which are of small value, and form of them an Inter- national Park, to be left as wild and beautiful as it has ever been. The rights established by speculators, who now make high charges for permission to see the best views, and who are irri- tating nuisances to the sight-seer, would be bought up, and visitors left to the undisturbed enjoyment of one of the most marvellous scenes in Nature. The Governor of New York informed Lord Dufferin that if it were officially brought forward, he should be quite prepared to give his aid to the project, which has a precedent in the Californian purchase of the Yosemite Valley, and appeals in its rather grandiose, yet practicable character, to a weakness of the American mind. If the project is carried out, which is probable, as the amount required is very small, all visitors to America will have a permanent and very pleasant memorial of Lord Dufferin's reign in the Dominion, and one grand scene at least will have been rescued from the extortionate vulgarity of speculators.
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