December 14. — John Samuel Dawes, Esq;, of West Bromwich, 

 StafFordshire, Ironmaster ; and the Rev. Robert "Wallace, of 2 Caven- 

 dish Place, Manchester, were elected Fellows of this Society. 



A memoir, entitled " On the Ridges, Elevated Beaches, Inland 

 Cliffs and Boulder Formations of the Canadian Lakes and Valley of 

 St. Lawrence," by Charles Lyell, Esq., V.F.G.S., F.R.S., was com- 

 menced. 



January 4, 1843. — The Rev. William Wilson, B.D, Oxon., Vicar 

 of Walthamstow ; James Edward Davis, Esq., of the Middle Temple, 

 Barrister; John Moreton, Esq., of Chester Hill, near Uley, Glouces- 

 tershire ; and Sir George Lefevre, of No. 2 Porchester Place, Oxford 

 Square, were elected Fellows of this Society. 



The reading of Mr. Lyell's memoir, commenced on the 14th of 

 December, was resumed. 



After adverting to his former paper on the Recession of the Falls 

 of Niagai'a, and the observations which he made jointly with Mr, 

 Hall in the autumn of 1841*, Mr. Lyell gives an account of addi- 

 tional investigations made by him in June 1842; in the course of 

 which he found a fluviatile deposit similar to that of Goat Island, on 

 the right bank of the Niagara, nearly four miles lower down than 

 the great Falls. The freshwater strata of sand and gravel here 

 alluded to occur at the Whirlpool. They are horizontal, about forty 

 feet thick, plentifully charged with shells of recent species, and are 

 placed on the verge of the precipice overhanging the river. They 

 are bounded on their inland side by a steep bank of boulder clay, 

 which runs parallel to the course of the Niagara, marking the limit 

 of the original channel of the river before the excavation of the great 

 ravine. Another patch of sand, with freshwater shells, was detected 

 on the opposite or western side of the river, where the Muddy Run 

 flows in, about 1^ mile above the Whirlpool. From the position of 

 these strata it is inferred that the ancient bed of the river, somewhere 

 below the Whirlpool, must have been 300 feet higher than the pre- 

 sent bed, so as to form a barrier to that body of fresh water in which 

 the various beds of fluviatile sand and gravel above-mentioned were 

 accumulated. This barrier was removed when the cataract cut its 

 way back to a point further south. The author also remarks, that the 

 manner in which the freshwater beds of the Whirlpool and Goat Island 

 come into immediate contact with the subjacent Silurian limestone, 

 no drift intervening, shows that the original valley of the Niagara was 

 shaped out of limestone as well as drift. Hence he concludes that 

 the rocks in the rapids above the present Falls had suffered great 

 denudation while yet the Falls were at or below the Whirlpool. 



Mr. Lyell thinks that the form of the ledge of rock at the Devil's 

 Hole, and of the precipice which there projects and faces down the 

 river, proves the Falls to have been once at that point. An ancient 



* See Proceedings, vol. iii. p. 595. 



c2 



