March 25, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



287 



face rock was exposed with beautiful parallel 

 striation running north and south. The ex- 

 posure, therefore, had nothing to do with the 

 preglacial outlet, but it gave emphatic evi- 

 dence that the ice movement was not in the 

 direction of the axis of the lakes but directly 

 across it, and hence could not be a means of 

 eroding the lake basin. 



The actual preglacial outlet of Lake Erie, 

 however, emerges from the escarpment about 

 three miles southwest of St. Catharines. This 

 was discovered by Dr. J. W. Spencer and the 

 evidence presented in great detail in his report 

 published by the Canadian Survey in 1907, 

 on " The Evolution of the Falls of Niagara," 

 a volume of 500 pages in which the facts 

 relating to Niagara Ealls and the glacial phe- 

 nomena of the peninsula between the lakes 

 are presented with great fullness and ac- 

 curacy. I could do little more than follow 

 in Dr. Spencer's footsteps with this book in 

 hand, to test the evidence. The results of 

 Spencer's investigations are very impressive 

 as one goes over the field. At the point men- 

 tioned there is an embayment in the escarp- 

 ment, two miles wide at the level of the 

 Niagara limestone; and lower down at the 

 level of the Clinton limestone or Medina 

 sandstone, the gorge is a mile wide filled with 

 glacial debris which has been penetrated by 

 wells to a considerable distance below the level 

 of Lake Ontario. The glacial filling in the 

 gorge, which originally rose to the surface, 

 has been much eroded by Twelve Mile Creek 

 and its tributaries which penetrate it, giving 

 rise to a region known as the " short hills." 



Three or four miles above the mouth of the 

 gorge the line of the outlet is covered by a 

 remarkable deposit of superficial glacial debris 

 known as Font Hill which is something like 

 an immense drumlin or kame and rises at its 

 sumit 300 feet above the level of the Niagara 

 escarpment and extends in a northeast-south- 

 west direction between three and four miles, 

 being at its widest point about a mile wide. 

 The material shows stratification on the sides, 

 such as appears in eskers. This accumula- 

 tion is unique, and rises up like a mountain 

 peak out of the level plain which extends all 



the way north to the Lake Erie basin. I will 

 say nothing further about the theory of its 

 origin at present; but will reserve what I 

 have to say upon it for some future occasion 

 when I may consider it in connection with 

 some other unique glacial accumulations of 

 that character in that region, notably. Berry- 

 mans Hill, about a mile west of Niagara Falls. 



North of Font Hill, as has been said, there 

 extends a level plain to Lake Erie and only 

 fifteen or twenty feet above it. In this plain 

 all preglacial channels are obliterated by the 

 glacial deposits which form the surface; but 

 Dr. Spencer had collected the record of wells 

 all over the region, which show clearly that 

 there is a continuous buried channel, about 

 200 feet deep, which emerges from Lake Erie 

 just east of Lowbanks, about half way be- 

 tween the mouth of Grand Eiver and the 

 head of the Welland Canal at Port Colborne. 

 There is, therefore, no doubt left that this 

 "Erigan channel," as Dr. Spencer calls it, 

 which emerges from the Niagara escarpment 

 near St. Catharines is the real preglacial out- 

 let to Lake Erie. 



Dr. Spencer's investigations concerning the 

 tributaries of this Erigan channel are also 

 of special interest, and it was the facts, re- 

 vealed by the well borings, concerning these 

 that led to the real discovery. Chippewa 

 Eiver, which enters the Niagara just above 

 the falls, rises twelve or fifteen miles west of 

 the Erigan channel; but before it reaches the 

 Niagara it crosses a buried channel which 

 well borings show slopes from the Niagara 

 River southwestward until it merges into the 

 Erigan channel. Numerous other tributaries 

 are found to do the same. Mr. Spencer's in- 

 vestigations deserve to be more widely dis- 

 seminated to forestall the publishing of such 

 items as that referred to at the beginning of 

 this communication. 



G. Frederick Wright 

 Obeelin, 



relativity and estimates of star 

 diameters 



To THE Editor of Science : In reducing the 

 measurements of the diameter of Betelgeuse 



