PROCEEDINGS 
OF 
THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 
Vou. III. Parr II. 1842, No. 85. 
Jan. 19th.—‘‘A Memoir on the Recession of the Falls of Niagara,” 
by Charles Lyell, Esq., V.P.G.S., was read. 
The general features of the physical geography of the district tra- 
versed by the Niagara between Lakes Erie and Ontario, Mr. Lyell 
says, have been described with a considerable approach to accuracy 
by several writers. Prof. Eaton, in a small work published in 1824*, 
gives a correct section of the formations between Lewistown and 
the Falls of Niagara, and also refutes the hypothesis of the Lewis- 
town escarpment being due to a fault by an exposition of the true 
structure of the country. Mr. R. Bakewell in 18307, published an 
account of the country adjacent to the Falls, and Mr. De la Beche 
in 1831}, endeavoured to point out the gradual manner in which 
the receding Falls, if they should ever reach Lake Erie, would dis- 
charge the waters of the lake; Prof. D. Rogers also in 1835 § 
showed distinctly, that, as the Falls retrograde, they would cut 
through rocks entirely distinct from those over which the waters are 
now precipitated, and correctly represents the superior limestone at 
Buffalo as newer than the limestone of the Falls, though he omits 
the intervening saliferous formation. Mr. Conrad likewise, in his 
Report for 1837/||, first assigned all the formations of the country to 
the Silurian system ; but to Mr. James Hall (1838) @ is due the merit 
of having shown the true geological succession of rocks of the di- 
strict. 
The contents of the memoir may be divided into two parts: I. an 
account of the successive strata of the Niagara district; and II. a 
description of the phenomena exhibited by the Falls. 
I. His sketch of the geology of the district, the author states, is 
derived either from the published surveys of Mr. Hall, or from the 
information he obtained while travelling with that gentleman in the 
State of New York during the autumn of 1841; and he acknow- 
ledges the great advantage he derived from the facilities thus afforded 
him. The strata between Lakes Erie and Ontario appear to belong 
to the middle and lower portions of the English Silurian system, and 
* Mr. Lyell’s attention was called to this work by Mr. Conrad. 
+ Loudon’s Magazine of Natural History, 1830. 
+ Manual of Geology, three editions, 1831,p. 55; 1832, p.55; 1833, p. 60. 
§ Silliman’s Journal, vol. xxvii. p. 326. 
|| States’ Report of the Geology of New York. 
q{ Geological Report of the State of New York for 1838. 
VOL. Ill, PART II. 3D 
