384 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. YOL. IV. No. 90. 



was the meeting of the sub-section of Pleis- 

 tocene Geology on Friday afternoon, when 

 the papers were read relating to the history 

 of Niagara Falls. Mr. Gilbert's three 

 papers were of extraordinary interest. In 

 the paper on the Algonquin Eiver, evidence 

 was given of an outlet of Lake Algonquin, 

 heading at Kirkfield, Ontario, and follow- 

 ing the Trent River to Lake Ontario. This 

 outlet for the drainage of the upper lakes 

 belonged to an earlier date than the outlet 

 through Lake Mpissing and the Ottawa 

 Eiver. There is, therefore, evidence of two 

 epochs, after the birth of the JSTiagara 

 Eiver, in which it lost the waters of the 

 upper lakes, and was reduced to the condi- 

 tion of an outlet merely for the Erie basin. 

 In the paper on the Profile of the Bed of 

 ]S"iagara in its Gorge, evidence was given 

 to show the correlation between these 

 epochs of low water and the excavation of 

 particular parts of the gorge. In the 

 swifter and more turbulent parts of the 

 Niagara, a determination of the depth by 

 sounding is, of course, impracticable ; but 

 an approximate estimate of the depth has 

 been reached indirectly by determining the 

 velocitjr of the water, since obviously the 

 same volume of water must pass in a unit 

 of time through every cross section of the 

 gorge. The Niagara gorge shows two 

 stretches of narrow and shallow channel, in 

 which the current is swift and tumultuous, 

 one extending from the railroad bridges to 

 the Whirlpool, the other extending for 

 some distance below Foster Flats. The 

 latter was apparently excavated during the 

 low-water epoch in which the drainage of 

 the upper lakes was through the Algonquin 

 Eiver, while the former is correlated with 

 the later epoch in which the upper lakes 

 discharged their waters by way of Lake 

 Nipissing and the Ottawa Eiver. In 

 th6 discussion of Mr. Gilbert's papers, 

 Mr. F. B. Taylor gave important confirma- 

 tion of the views advanced in regard to the 



history of Niagara, derived from his in- 

 vestigations upon the history of the lakes. 



In his paper on the Whirlpool-St. David's 

 Channel, Mr. Gilbert presented evidence 

 for the belief that that channel was ex- 

 cavated in preglacial times to a depth be- 

 low the present level of the Niagara Eiver. 

 The outcrops of rock in Bowman's Creek 

 were explained as due to the fact that 

 Bowman's Creek is not in the middle, but 

 at one side, of the ancient preglacial chan- 

 nel. The evidence of a deep, continuous 

 channel between the "Whirlpool and St. 

 David's is acknowledged to be incomplete, 

 since none of the wells in that region are 

 in the line of the middle of the channel, 

 and none of them, therefore, reveal its full 

 depth. 



In the discussion of this paper. Prof. I. C. 

 White suggested that at moderate expense 

 an experimental boring could be made in 

 the direct line between the Whirlpool and 

 St. David's, and the question of the exist- 

 ence of a deep channel in that vicinity con- 

 clusively settled. The suggestion was 

 favorably received, and a committee, con- 

 sisting of Prof. White and Messrs. Gilbert 

 and Spencer, was appointed to carry out 

 the proposed investigation. Subscriptions 

 of twenty-five dollars each towards the ex- 

 pense of the investigation were made by 

 Prof. White, Prof. H. S. Williams, and Mr. 

 F. B. Taylor. 



Besides the papers relating to Niagara, a 

 number of other interesting papers relating 

 to Pleistocene Geology were presented. 

 Mr. F. B. Taylor, in his paper on the 

 Glacial Succession in Eastern Michigan, 

 described a series of fifteen terminal mo- 

 raines between Cincinnati and the Straits of 

 Mackinaw, and pointed out interesting cor- 

 relations between the Quaternary history of 

 Michigan and that of western New York. 



Mr. Warren Upham, in his paper on the 

 St. Croix Eiver, gave evidence that in pre- 

 glacial times the upper St. Croix Eiver left 



