Niagara Falls 



1841 genera Unio, Cyclas, Melania, Valvata, Limnea, Planorbis, and 

 Helix, all of recent species, in the superficial deposit. They 

 form regular beds, and numerous individuals of the Unio and 

 Cyclas have both their valves united. We then found the same 

 formation exactly opposite to the Falls on the top of the cliff 

 on the American side, where to river-terraces, one twelve 

 and the other twenty-four feet above the Niagara, have been 

 cut in the modern deposits. In these we observed the same 

 fossil shells as in Goat Island, and learnt that the teeth and 

 other remains of a mastodon, some of which were shown us, had 

 been found thirteen feet below the surface of the soil. We were 

 then taken by our guide to a spot farther north, where similar 

 gravel and sand with fluviatile shells occurred near the edge of 

 the cliff overhanging the ravine, resting on the solid limestone. 

 It was about half a mile below the principal Fall, and extended 

 at some points 300 yards inland, but no farther, for it was then 

 bounded by the bank of more ancient drift. This deposit 

 precisely occupies the place which the ancient bed and alluvial 

 plain of the Niagara would naturally have filled, if the river 

 once extended farther northwards, at a level sufficiently high 

 to cover the greater part of Goat Island. At that period 

 the ravine could not have existed, and there must have been a 

 barrier, several miles lower down, at or near the whirlpool. 



The supposed original channel, through which the waters 

 flowed from Lake Erie to Queenston or Lewiston, was excavated 

 chiefly, but not entirely, in the superficial drift, and the old river- 

 banks cut in this drift are still to be seen facing each other, on 

 both sides of the ravine, for many miles below the Falls. A 

 section of Goat Island from south to north, or parallel to the 

 course of the Niagara, shows that the limestone had been 

 greatly denuded before the fluviatile beds were accumulated, 

 and consequently when the Falls were still several miles below 

 their present site. From this fact I infer that the slope of 

 the river at the rapids was principally due to the original 

 shape of the old channel, and not, as some have conjectured, to 

 modern erosions on the approach of the Falls to the spot 



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