Niagara Falls 



1841 now at the top of the Falls, will then be at their base; and its 

 great hardness may, perhaps, effectually stop the excavating 

 process, if it should not have been previously arrested by the 

 descent of large masses of the same rock from the cliff above. It 

 will also appear that the Falls will continually diminish in height, 

 and should they ever reach Lake Erie, they will intersect entirely 

 different strata from those over which they are now thrown. 



The next inquiry into which we are naturally led by our 

 retrospect into the past history of this region, relates to the origin 

 of the Falls. If they were once seven miles northward of their 

 present site, in what manner, and at what geological period, did 

 they first come into existence? In tracing back the series of past 

 events, we have already seen that the last change was the erosion 

 of the great ravine; previously to which occurred the deposition 

 of the freshwater deposit, including fossil shells of recent species, 

 and the bones of the Mastodon. Thirdly, of still older date was 

 the drift or boulder formation which overspreads the whole plat- 

 form and the face of the escarpment near Queenston, as well as 

 the low country between it and Lake Ontario. Fourthly, the 

 denudation of the line of cliff or escarpment, in which the 

 table-land ends abruptly, preceded the origin of the drift. I 

 shall endeavour to show, in a subsequent chapter, when speaking 

 of Canada, that this drift was of marine origin, and formed when 

 the whole country was submerged beneath the sea. In the region 

 of the Niagara it is .stratified, and though no fossils have as yet 

 been detected in it, similar deposits occur in the valley of the 

 St. Lawrence at Montreal, at a height nearly equal to Lake Erie, 

 where fossil shells, of species such as now inhabit the northern 

 seas, lie buried in the drift. 



It is almost superfluous to affirm that a consideration of the 

 geology of the whole basin of the St. Lawrence and the great 

 lakes can alone entitle us to speculate on the state of things which 

 immediately preceded or accompanied the origin of the Great 

 Cataract. To give even a brief sketch of the various phenomena 

 to which our attention must be directed, in order to solve this 



556 



