Byline: David Gates

In a new history of Niagara Falls, a natural wonder is reshaped by man--and its surroundings become a toxic wasteland.

The first European to see Niagara falls didn't enjoy it. "When one stands near the Fall," wrote Father Louis Hennepin (who did so in 1678), "and looks down into this most dreadful Gulph, one is seized with Horror." If you've ever been there, you may know the feeling. Mount Everest or the Grand Canyon may also inspire that sense of mingled awe, terror and human insignificance the Romantics called the sublime. But unlike those places, Niagara Falls is unceasing, deafening, destructive motion--one of these centuries, in fact, it will ...