APRIL 25, 1907 | 
NATURE 
607 
EROSION AT NIAGARA. 
T seems to have been a matter of common observ- 
ation among the early colonists of America that 
the Niagara Falls had receded from the escarpment 
at Queenston to their present position six miles up 
the gorge. In spite of the view then frequently held 
that ravines were to be accounted for by violent rend- 
ings of the crust, those six miles, even in the 
eighteenth century, were appealed to as a natural 
time-scale. It was, moreover, felt that the rate of re- 
cession might give us a measure of the antiquity of 
the earth. James Hall in 1842 established a series of 
marks and monuments to which subsequent surveys 
might refer, and Mr. G. K. Gilbert’ now draws 
conclusions from the work of his predecessors in 
1842, 1875, 1886, and 1890, and from Mr. W. C. 
Hall’s re-examination of the edge for the United 
States Geological Survey in 1905. He reproduces 
some of Captain Basil Hall’s drawings, made with 
a camera lucida in 1827, and interesting photographs 
taken from 1855 onward. The former, which appear 
to be of great accuracy, throw doubt on certain de- 
bie fs 
The Horseshoe, the true head of the Niagara Gorge, about 1886. 
was not present in 1827. 
tails of the map of 1842. Mr. Gilbert regards the 
survey of 1co5 as of especial importance, since it is 
the last record of the Niagara River in a natural con- | 
dition. ‘‘ The Erie Canal is supplied with water from 
the Niagara River at Buffalo, 
is supplied from Lake Erie, and the Chicago Drain- 
age Canal draws water from Lake Michigan. All 
the water thus diverted is withdrawn from the 
cataract. So also is the water diverted from the river 
above the falls for factory purposes and for use in 
the generation of electricity ’’ (p. 12). 
The really active line of erosion is at the lip of 
the Horseshoe Fall. Very little recession occurred 
here at the head of the gorge between 1827 and 1842, 
but the rate between 1842 and 1875 
per annum, 
annum (p. 15). distance through ’’—Mr. 
Gilbert writes ™ thru —‘ which the Horseshoe Fall 
has retreated since it parted from the American Fall 
is about 2500 feet. 
““The 
” 
es recession of the 
2 foot per annum. 
aie: Gilbert, in view of the importance of local and 
temporary conditions, such as the position of joints 
in the limestone shelf, wisely makes no estimate of 
the time that has elapsed since the falls occurred at 
Queenston. But his study will be welcome in the 
literature of geology and geography alike, since it 
deals with one of the most famous types of river- 
erosion in the world. GaAs iT. 'C. 
American Fall is probably only 
A YEAR’S WORK OF THE CARNEGIE 
INSTITUTION. 
HE Carnegie Institution was founded, and 
endowed with 2,000,000l1., in order ‘‘to 
encourage, in the broadest and most liberal manner, 
investigation, research and discovery, and the appli- 
| cation of knowledge to the improvement of man- 
kind.’? The year- book for 1906 contains a general re- 
| port on the work of the year, and short abstracts of 
the Welland Canal | 
was about 4 feet | 
and from 1875 to 1905 nearly 6 feet per 
Allowing 5 feet per annum as | 
‘The notch in the farther margin 
| researches 
the special investigations in progress. To the reader 
it affords abundant opportunity 
of ‘‘ fine confused feedin’’’; to 
the reviewer a mass of projects 
| and results of which it is hope- 
less to give any adequate 
account. 
The trustees’ plan of campaign 
has not yet been thoroughly 
worked out, and, indeed, in de- 
tail at least, must vary with the 
time. At the outset they had 
hosts of applications for assist- 
ance in research. The univer- 
sities and colleges of the United 
States are now largely staffed 
by men brought up on research, 
who find themselves without the 
time or the appliances for the 
work they have prepared them- 
selves to do. It was natural that 
they should appeal to the insti- 
tution for assistance, and that 
the trustees should respond by 
making grants in aid to indi- 
vidual investigators on a some- 
what extensive scale. But diffi- 
culties have made themselves 
manifest, especially in the supervision of miscellaneous 
investigations; and experience has convinced the 
trustees that there is a greater prospect of a valuable 
return from large projects carried on under the direct 
supervision of the institution than from minor projects 
entrusted to individuals. Accordingly, during 1906, 
while the larger projects have been increased, a smaller 
number of minor grants have been made than in 
former years. 
There are at present forty-five of these minor 
projects in progress. They are for the most part 
in mathematical, physical, and natural 
science, and in history, literature, and philology ; 
but they include also the preparation of such works 
as the ‘Index Medicus.’”? The grants in aid of 
_ them range from 5ol. to 2000l., and seem to be made 
the rate of recession, the parting took place about | 
five hundred years ago.” 
1 “Rate of Recession of Niagara Falls.” By G. K. Gilbert, accom- 
panied by a Report on the Survey of the Crest, by W. Carvel Hall. 
Pp. 31+11 plates. (Bull. U.S. Geol. Survey, No. 306, 1907.) 
NO. 1956, VOL. 75 | 
The present average rate | 
for the provision of assistants, apparatus and 
materials, and for the publication of results. The 
total amount thus allotted during the year was about 
19,0001. 
The larger projects may be divided into four 
classes—astronomical, geophysical, biological, and 
economic and historical. Astronomy has always been 
1 Carnegie Institution of Washington. Year-Book No. 5, 1906. Pp. vilit 
266. (Washington: Published by the Institution, 1907.) 
