POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



857 



ment, the current of the river was broken 

 by rapids ; for the thin layer of limestone 

 which here overhangs the Niagara shale 

 would barely be strong enough to sustain 

 the tremendous volume of water and form 

 a fall over its edge. The rate at which the 

 gorge was excavated between Lewiston and 

 the Whirlpool must have been rapid. The 

 route was predetermined by a shallow val- 

 ley, which had reduced the upper layer of 

 limestone to a considerable extent. Thus 

 there was never a fall at Lewiston, only a 

 series of rapids drawing back to the Whirl- 

 pool, where the falls were started and 

 whence only, and not from Lewiston, they 

 have receded. 



Professor R. S. Woodward, of the United 

 States Geological Survey of the Falls, pre- 

 sented a report on the rate of recession, 

 which he computed to be about 2*4 feet a 

 year, or a mile in 2,300 years. Mr. G. L. 

 Gilbert, also of the United States Geologi- 

 cal Survey, gave an account of his observa- 

 tions of the lake - shore terraces, and the 

 conclusions he had drawn from them re- 

 specting the subsidence of the lakes. Tak- 

 ing up Professor Woodward's estimate of 

 the rate of recession of the falls, he re- 

 marked that it would make the work of 

 excavation extend over 7,000 years. This 

 was subject to various qualifications by 

 channels of earlier origin, by different 

 rocks of different thickness encountered 

 from time to time in the wearing away 

 process, and by the difference in the vol- 

 ume, breadth, and plunge of the river at 

 various periods of its history. On the whole, 

 he was inclined to the opinion that the esti- 

 mate of 7,000 years should be regarded as 

 a maximum. After one or two other speak- 

 ers had taken part in the discussion, Pro- 

 fessor Pohlman said that he was glad to 

 find the "mountains of science" agreeing 

 with "a mole-hill like himself" regarding 

 the existence of a pre-glacial valley. Pro- 

 fessor E. W. Claypole, in a paper on the 

 "What might have been" of Buffalo and 

 Chicago, showed that if the ice-barrier at 

 Buffalo had been twenty -five feet higher 

 than it was, or had the Mackinaw channel 

 been freed from its barrier before the out- 

 let from Lake Erie and Lake Ontario was 

 unlocked, the drainage of the four lakes 

 would have been reversed ; the Mississippi 



would have taken the place of the St. Law- 

 rence, Chicago of Buffalo, and Buffalo of 

 Chicago. 



An Esthetic View of Polygamy. Mr. 



George Ticknor Curtis, in his argument in 

 the Supreme Court of the United States in 

 the case of Lorenzo Snow, plaintiff in error, 

 takes a view of Mormon polygamy that we 

 do not remember to have before observed 

 to be insisted upon in the States. By this 

 view the relation to all but a single wife is 

 purely spiritual, and one simply of care- 

 taking, with recollections only of past more 

 intimate ties. The idea of it is given in the 

 testimony of Harriet Snow, who was mar- 

 ried to Snow in Nauvoo in 1846, and had 

 never been divorced. She said : " He was 

 not my husband in 1884, according to the 

 general term of husband. He did not live 

 with me as a wife. He had arranged for 

 my support, and I drew it as common. In 

 1884 I looked upon him as my companion, 

 the husband of my youth. In 1884 the 

 marriage relation did not continue as it was 

 in my young days. I was an old lady in 

 1884. I call myself a married lady. I was 

 sealed to the defendant for time and for 

 eternity. When a lady gets so that she 

 can not bear children, then she is released 

 from some of her duties as a wife. I mean 

 that he is my companion, but not husband." 

 According to Mr. Curtis's argument, Snow 

 had duties to discharge toward Harriet and 

 the other women similarly situated toward 

 him, which duties, the attorney continues, 

 " are natural, are of moral obligation, of 

 perpetual obligation, and are duties which, 

 when we consider how and when they were 

 assumed, and how they have become woven 

 into the texture of his life, it would be bar- 

 baric to punish." The question is, in fact, 

 surrounded with more and greater embar- 

 rassments than the urgers of summary leg- 

 islation to put down polygamy have appar- 

 ently been ready to consider. The women, 

 who profess to have acted conscientiously, 

 are entitled to protection and provision 

 whatever laws may be enacted. They have 

 a right to be placed where they can be sup- 

 ported and can live respectably. The prob- 

 lem is one of the same kind as that which 

 troubles Christian missionaries when they 

 make converts in polygamous countries, 



