;i62 



FALLS OF NIAGAKA. 



[Ch. XV. 



Melania 



Ma 



rara above the Falls. The identity of the fossil 

 species with the recent is unquestionable, although bones of 

 the extinct mastodon (If. giganteus) are associated with the 



Goat Island. These freshwater deposits occur at 

 several points along the cliffs bounding the ravine, so that 



same 



they prove 



the 

 miles 



mer extension of an elevated shallow 



that now 



Ma 



intervening between Lake Erie and the Falls. Whatever 

 theory be framed for the hollowing out of the ravine further 



miles 



between the 



whirlpool and Queenstown, it will always be necessary to 

 suppose the former existence of a barrier of rock, not of loose 

 and destructible materials, such as those composing the 

 drift in this district, somewhere immediately below the 

 whirlpool. By that barrier the waters were held back for 

 ages, when the fluviatile deposit, forty feet in thickness, and 

 250 feet above the present channel of the river, originated. 

 If we are led by this evidence to admit that the cataract has 



miles 



miles 



chasm 



many 



recession of the Falls, and the deluge that might be oc- 

 casioned by the sudden escape of the waters of Lake Erie, if 



miles 



more 



of the rocks, brought to light by the State Survey, has 

 satisfied every geologist that the Falls would diminish 

 gradually in height before they travelled back two miles, and 

 in consequence of a gentle dip of the strata to the south, the 

 massive limestone now at the top would then be at their 

 base, and would retard, and perhaps put an effectual stop to, 

 the excavating process.*" 



* I have repeatedly seen in the which have been precipitated into the 



American newspapers in the course of chasm below. Some of these alterations 



the last twelve years accounts of changes have rendered it impossible to reach a 



caused in the outline of the cataract by spot under the sheet of falling water to 



1 he wearing away of the channel and the which I was led by my guide in 1 841. 

 undermining of huge fragments of rock, 



