Science, Geology and Physics 



Early in the morning after our arrival, I saw from the window 1841 

 of our hotel, on the American side, a long train of white vapoury ye 

 clouds hanging over the deep chasm below the falls. They were 

 slightly tinted by the rays of the rising sun, and blown slowly 

 northwards by a gentle breeze from the pool below the cataract, 

 which was itself invisible from this point of view. No fog was 

 rising from the ground, the sky was clear above ; and as the day 

 advanced, and the air grew warm, the vapours all disappeared. 



the Falls of Niagara teach us not merely to appre- 

 ciate the power of moving water, but furnish us at the same time 

 with data for estimating the enormous lapse of ages during 

 which that force has operated. A deep and long ravine has been 

 excavated, and the river has required ages to accomplish the 

 task, yet the same region affords evidence that the sum of these 

 ages is as nothing, and as the work of yesterday, when compared 

 to the antecedent periods, of which there are monuments in the 

 same district. 



It has long been a favourite subject of discussion whether the 

 Falls were once situated seven miles farther north, or at Queens- 

 ton. The ideal bird's-eye view given in the frontispiece may 

 assist the reader who has not visited the spot to form a tolerably 

 correct general notion of the geographical configuration of this 

 country, which is very simple. The view has been constructed 

 from a sketch published by Mr. Bakewell, in Loudon's Maga- 

 zine for 1830, into which the geological representation of the 

 rocks, as they appear on the surface and in the ravine of the 

 Niagara, has been introduced from the State Survey by Mr. 

 Hall. The platform, in a depression of which Lake Erie is sit- 

 uated, is more than 330 feet above Lake Ontario, and the 

 descent from a higher to a lower level is sudden and abrupt at 

 the escarpment called the Queenston heights. The strata 

 throughout this whole region are nearly horizontal, but they have 

 a gentle dip to the south of 25 feet in a mile. This inclination is 

 sufficient to cause the different groups of rock to crop out one 

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