of the Falls of Niagara, 553 



of about two acres on the American side of the Niagara, and not re- 

 ferable to the action of that river, is no objection to the theory of the 

 recession of the Falls, because he conceives that the stream flowing 

 down it could have effected the denudation, aided by atmospheric 

 agents ; and because a similar objection might be founded on a ra- 

 vine on the Canada side opposite the Whirlpool, where several par- 

 allel gullies have been deeply eaten into by streams. The charac- 

 ters of this ravine were carefully examined by Mr. Lyell and Mr. 

 Hall, and appear to have escaped previous observers. What was 

 anciently a ravine joins the defile of the Niagara at this point, but 

 it is entirely filled with horizontal beds of drifted pebbles, sand and 

 loam ; the first, near the bottom of the deposit, having been cemented 

 into a conglomerate by carbonate of lime. This is the only interrup- 

 tion of the regular strata along the course of the Niagara ; and Mr. 

 Lyell observes, it is desirable to ascertain if it be a prolongation of 

 the ravine which intersects the great escarpment at St. David's, west 

 of Lewistown. 



The author states, that he is by no means desirous of attaching 

 importance to the precise numerical "calculations which have been 

 made respecting the number of yards that the Falls have receded 

 during the last half century, as there are no data on which accurate 

 measurements could be made ; and because fifty years ago the district 

 was a wilderness. Mr. Ingrahaw of Boston has, however, called his 

 attention to a work published by the French Missionary, Father Hen- 

 nipen, in which a view is given of the Falls as they appeared in 1678. 

 Goat Island is represented dividing the waters as at present ; but 

 besides the two existing cascades, a third is depicted on the Canada 

 side, crossing the Horse- shoe Fall at right angles, and appears to 

 have been produced by a projection of the Table Rock. In the de- 

 scription Father Hennipen states, that this smaller cascade fell from 

 west to east, and not like the other two, from south to north. 



Seventy- three years afterwards, in 1751, a letter on the Falls, by 

 Kalm, the Swedish botanist, was published in the * Gentleman's Ma- 

 gazine.' It is illustrated by a plate, in which the third Fall is omit* 

 ted ; but the writer states in a note, that at that point the water 

 was formerly forced out of its direct course by a projecting rock, and 

 turned obliquely across the other Fall *. 



Mr. Lyell then proceeds to show what are the geological evidences 

 of the former prolongation of the river's bed, on a level with the top 

 of the ravine through which the Niagara now flows. The existence 

 on Goat Island of strata of marl, gravel and sand, containing fossil 

 freshwater shells, was known before Mr. Bakewell's paper on the 

 Falls was published, and they have been more recently described by 

 Mr. Hall f ; and Mr. Lyell states, that he was very desirous of 

 ascertaining how far they extend on the banks of the river, or 



* The author has observed distinct signs of recession in strata of the 

 Silurian and Devonian epochs at the Falls of the Genessee in Rochester 

 and at Portage, at the Fall of Allen's Creek below Le Roy, near the town 

 of Batavia, and at the Falls of Jacock's river, three miles north of Genessee, 



t Report for 1838. 



