Burning Spring, Lord Dufferin Isles, Canada

J. Zybach and Company, Niagara Falls, Ontario

ca. 1885 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

The Burning Spring was the first of many tourist traps to appear around Niagara Falls in the early nineteenth century. Entrepreneurs transformed this reservoir of sulfurous gas into a popular attraction, containing its fumes with a barrel and pipe. Ushered into the dark shed seen here, visitors could watch as the gas was uncorked and set aflame. One eyewitness recalled that, as the roiling fumes were lit, “The faces of those standing near looked like the ‘weird sisters’ of Macbeth around the cauldron.” The vapors illuminate this photograph with a similarly eerie glow.

Artist

J. Zybach and Company, Niagara Falls, Ontario

Date

ca. 1885

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gift of Mariana Cook and Hans P. Kraus Jr., 2006