Niagara Falls 



1850 numerous layers of reel clay marl, among the red rocks of the 

 underlying Medina sandstone, are in conformity with the 

 economically important observation, in reference to the agri- 

 cultural value of this group of rocks, to which I adverted in the 

 preceding chapter — that the poorer Medina sand-rock of the 

 eastern counties of New York becomes more mixed with clay 

 towards the west. Hence the rich soils to which it gives rise 

 below the mouth of the Niagara River, and along the south- 

 western borders of Lake Ontario, where it forms the surface of 

 the country. 



Above the Niagara limestone, rest the Onondaga salt rocks 

 and their debris; and though these are spread over the surface of 

 the country in the neighbourhood of the village of Niagara, they 

 are not seen in the section of the ravine as it appears from the 

 bridge, nor on the immediate banks of the river. 



On the Canadian side of the Falls, a high bluff of red, prob- 

 ably drifted clay, rests above the Niagara limestone, forming an 

 upland above the narrow fringe which separates it from the 

 waters of the river above the Falls. Below the falls, this bluff 

 retires to a considerable distance from the river, and the carriage- 

 road to the suspension bridge runs along the surface of the nearly 

 naked rock. When walking leisurely here, two things agree in 

 forcing the same thought upon the imagination. Where it is 

 completely uncovered, the whole upper surface of the limestone 

 rock, on which we travel, exhibits evidence of the wearing action 

 of the water. It has the same hollowed and irregular appearance 

 as the surface above the falls, over which the water is now pour- 

 ing. Over this, therefore, the river must formerly have run, before 

 it ate out the deep ravine below. And, again, the retiring of the 

 bluffs shows that it then, as we should suppose, had occupied a 

 wider bed, and, as it now does above the Falls, had undermined 

 the cliffs of clay, and bent its course now more to the one side, and 

 now more to the other, as circumstances might direct. One 

 reflects on such things, and in his closet makes qqqI calculations 



564 



