In some senses, a waterfall is the planet at its most rudimentary... click the photo see water fall ...

In some senses, a waterfall is the planet at its most rudimentary. Even the grandest of cascades is, after all, a simple case of physics - the raw effect of gravity on one of the most intrinsic elements of life in our world, no more remarkable than a summer raindrop, the first splatters of drizzle on a car windscreen, or a persistently leaky roof. And yet to reduce these roaring "landmarks" to examples of cause and effect is to ignore their majesty. The waterfall has always captured the imagination - the sparkling vision of a river dashing over a high precipice leading early civilisations to engage in talk of gods and heroes, and later travellers to reach out for cameras and effusive superlatives. Witness the words of David Livingstone - not a man given to hyperbole - on seeing what he would call Victoria Falls, on November 16 1855: "Creeping with awe to the verge, I peered down into a large rent which had been made from bank to bank of the broad Zambezi… No one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England. It had never been seen before by European eyes, but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight." In short, a major waterfall is likely to be the centrepoint of any holiday journey. The joy is that while you can travel to Zimbabwe or Zambia to see Victoria Falls for yourself , you can also find epic alternatives on every continent - a happy consequence of the waterfall's ordinariness. The following selection of watery wonders includes some of the global classics, but also less eulogised natural marvels a little closer to home... -- By Chris Leadbeater