^96 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XXII. No. 56S 



pause in the terrestrial movement was of long duration- 

 The youthful Niagara drained only the Erie basin, and 

 cascaded over the low Niagara escarpment in a sheet re- 

 sembling the modern "American Falls." 



After a long rest, the continental undulations again be- 

 came active, so that before long the waters in the Ontario 

 basin sank eighty feet below its present level, and with- 

 drew somewhat from the head of the lake, but they ex- 

 tended far down the Laurentian valley. 



The Iroquois shore was formed at sea level. Before 

 the Iroquois episode, the terrestrial warpings had set in, 

 but the deformation was relatively slight. The deforma- 

 tion accompanying the epeirogenic movements following 

 the Iroquois days was much more pronounced. About 

 the head of Lake Erie, the beaches are now nearly level, 

 but at the eastern end the deformation is two feet in the 

 mile; east of Georgian Bay it amounts to four feet, and 

 east of Lake Ontario it reaches five, six or even eight feet 

 or more in each mile. In this Adirondack region, it is 

 not unlikely that the old strands have been more or less 

 dislocated by modern faultings such as occur from the 

 Hudson Eiver southward. Up to the present time we do 



fragments at a thousand feet or more, the whole rising as 

 a monument of the mutability of the most ancient hills of 

 America. 



The story of the lakes is still incomplete, and some of 

 the most important questions are not yet settled. But a 

 dozen years of research upon the old shore-lines, whether 

 beaches, terraces or sea cliffs, has begun to throw some 

 light upon the history of the most distinguished feature 

 of the continent. We now know something of the origin of 

 the basins, the birth, maturity and commencement of the 

 old age of the great lakes. Something more of their age 

 will be known when the history of Niagara Falls is writ- 

 ten, but its history could not have been deciphered with- 

 out the present history of the lakes being known. 



— At the beginning of the present year a meeting was 

 held in London to promote a memorial commemorative of 

 the eminent services of the late Sir Eichard Owen in the 

 advancement of the sciences of Anatomy, Zoology and 

 Palaeontology. It was decided that the memorial should 

 consist primarily of a marble statue, which should be 

 offered to the Trustees of the British Museum, to be 





M.\P SHOWING THE WESTEBN PAKT OF IROQUOIS LAKE. 



not know what barriers, if any, closed these inland seas. 

 The lower strands are known to be connected with old 

 marine shore-lines. There may have been some land bar- 

 riers now unrecognized on account of faulting. Some 

 think that the waters were held in as glacial lakes. Of 

 the eastern region there has been too little exploration 

 for us to know anything about the lakes. But we do 

 know that there were once greater bodies of water where 

 the lakes now exist. 



During the earlier Niagara epoch, or throughout the 

 Iroquois epoch, the Nipissing strait became lower, and the 

 Algonquin waters slowly subided so that they emptied by 

 a river flowing through the Nipissing basin and the Otta- 

 wa valley to the Iroquois lake below. But with the rise 

 of land accompanying the subsidence of the Iroquois 

 waters, below their great beach, the Nipissing rim of the 

 Huron basin was raised so high that the Algonquin lake 

 flooded the head of the Michigan basin, and overflowed 

 what is now the outlet (then the head) of the Huron 

 basin, and drained by the Niagara Eiver. 



About this time the eastern rim of the Erie basin was 

 raised up, so that the waters backed up to the present 

 head of the lake, and the barrier at the outlet of Lake 

 Ontario was uplifted so as to back water over the lands 

 at the head of the basin to the extent of eighty feet. 



To-day the Iroquois beach rises 363 feet above the sea 

 (the lake is 247 feet). At the eastern end the same 

 beach is 730 feet, and still farther, on the flanks of the 

 Adirondack mountains, this old shore line may be seen in 



placed in the Hall of the Natural History Museum. A 

 large committee, including the names of many foreign 

 and American men of science, was formed to carry out 

 this project, the Prince of Wales being Chairman. The 

 circular-letter sent out has been very liberally responded 

 to, the subscription list amounting on Nov. 1 to £1,050. 

 The number of contributors, however, is relatively small; 

 and it is hojsed that a much larger sum will yet be ob- 

 tained: for Owen was so many-sided in his work that his 

 memory has a claim upon naturalists of every grade all 

 over the world. With a few notable exceptions, a very 

 small number of American names have as yet appeared 

 among the contributors. They have probably yet to be 

 sent, and we would offer the present suggestion that 

 subscriptions from intending donors should be sent with 

 as little delay as possible to the Treasurer of the Fund, 

 Sir William H. Flower, Natural History Museum, London, 

 S. W. 



— T. Y. Crowell& Co. have received word that Professor 

 Ely's "Taxation in American States and Cities," published 

 by them, will soon appear in Japanese, the work having 

 been translated by Dr. lyenaga, one of his former students, 

 and Mr. Shiozawa. Messrs. Crowell & Co. hope to have 

 Professor Ely's new book on "Socialism" on the market in 

 the coming sjsring. 



— James Pott & Co. announce that thej- have made ar- 

 rangements with Prof. Henry Drummond to bring out his 

 new work, "The Evolution of Man," being the Lowell 

 lectures for 1893. 



