# 1999 VHS • Niagara Falls: Raging Rapids 60 FPS

Niagara Falls: Raging Rapids is a science documentary examining the geological history, hydrology, and human relationship with Niagara Falls, presented through aerial, ground-level, and underwater footage. The program opens by framing Niagara as a natural force in constant self-destruction, then traces the hydrology of the Great Lakes basin, which contains a fifth of the world's freshwater and funnels it through a quarter-million-square-mile watershed into the Niagara River and over the falls at a rate of 400,000 gallons per second. The falls are identified as two distinct structures: the American Falls and the Canadian Horseshoe Falls, drawing an estimated 11 million visitors annually. The geological narrative follows the history of scientific understanding of the falls, beginning with the first European account by Father Louis Hennepin in 1683, through Charles Lyell's 19th-century revolution in geological thinking about the falls' age and rate of recession, through modern carbon dating and sonar surveying techniques used to map the gorge bed. Scientists explain how the falls have migrated seven miles upstream over 14,000 years from their origin at Queenston and how the Horseshoe Falls once stretched 1,200 feet across in a single wall before splitting into its current shape. A team of waterfall chasers is followed as they survey an uncharted falls in the Niagara region using laser rangefinders and GPS. The program also covers the Niagara Gorge, the history of daredevils…

- Kind: Film
- Year: 1999
- By: The Vista Group®
- Archive: [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/TheVistaGroup-NiagaraFallsRagingRapids)
- Licence or status: none stated by the archive
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/ia/TheVistaGroup-NiagaraFallsRagingRapids?play=1)