THE 

 POPULAR SCIENCE 



ONTHLY. 



APRIL, 1905. 



THE MENACE TO NIAGARA. 



BY Dr. JOHN M. CLARKE, 

 NEW YORK STATE GEOLOGIST, DIRECTOR OF SCIENCE AND THE STATE MUSEUM. 



XpORECASTS by eminent geologists of the future of Niagara Falls 

 -*-' have been much in the public eye and have lost some of their 

 novelty though none of their interest. The great cataract, it is said, 

 is committing suicide, and the physical factors which enter into the 

 process have, it is thought, been carefully weighed. If matters proceed 

 as they are now going, the face of the cataract receding without in- 

 terruption, the falls are to wear themselves out, or if the dominating 

 crustal movement continues, the escarpment is to be left bare because 

 its waters will be stolen away and turned back into Lake Erie. 



These are interesting possibilities, but they hardly rise to the dignity 

 of probabilities, for opposing considerations have been left out of the 

 calculations and even the remote periods assigned to their arrival grow 

 longer and more distant in the face of factors overlooked or not 

 sufficiently estimated. Nothing can be as wrong as mathematics or 

 logic where the premises are wrong; nothing more excusable than 

 the trial forecast for the life of a spectacular natural phenomenon,, 

 even though it will be and remain improbable till every factor in play 

 has been given its full share in the process. 



The problem of Niagara is not simple. As one sees with each 

 change of the sun a new wonder in its fascinating rush of waters, so 

 every reconsideration of the problem of its natural future brings into 

 activity contributory and qualifying elements before unrecognized. 



The intelligent public, now quite familiar with these forecasts, 

 looks upon the Niagara cataract as doomed at some remote time and 

 from causes which human power can not control, and doubtless this 



