1789 



McCauilin 



1790 



Maclay 



Niagara Falls 



rock have fallen down which were large enough to make any 

 sensible alteration in the brink; and in the space of two years 

 I could not perceive, by a pretty accurate measurement, that the 

 North-East brink had in the least receded. If we adopt the 

 opinion of the Falls having retired six miles, and if we suppose 

 the world to be 5700 years old, this will give above sixty-six 

 inches and a half for a year, or sixteen yards and two-thirds for 

 nine years, which I can venture to say has not been the case 

 since 1774. 



1790 

 Maclay, William. Journal, ed. by Edgar S. Maclay. N. Y.: 

 D. Appleton and Co. 1890. P. 190. 



Under the date of February 1 , 1 790, the author records his impressions 

 of Ellicott's account of the recession of the Falls. 



Mr. Ellicott's accounts of Niagara Falls are amazing 

 indeed. I communicated to him my scheme of an attempt to 

 account for the age of the world, or at least to fix the period 

 when the water began to cut the ledge of rock over which it 

 falls. The distance from the present pitch to where the falls 

 originally were, is now seven miles. For this space a tremendous 

 channel is cut in a solid limestone rock, in all parts one hundred 

 and fifty feet deep, but near two hundred and fifty at the mouth 

 or part where the attrition began. People who have known the 

 place since Sir William Johnson took possession of it, about 

 thirty years ago, give out that there is an attrition of twenty feet 

 in that time. Now, if 20 feet — 30 years — 7 miles, or 36,960 

 feet; answer, 55,440 years. 



1796 



179 6 Priest, William. Travels in the United States of North America, 



Prieit commencing in the year 1793, and ending in 1797, . . . Lond. : 



J. Johnson. 1802. P. 200. 



In a letter dated December 29, 1 796, the author tells of an American 

 writer who " has been endeavoring to investigate the age of the world, 

 from the Falls of Niagara! According to his calculation (which, by 

 the way, is not a little curious) it is 36,960 years since the first rain fell 



496 



