624 NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
level of five hundred and seventy-four feet; Lake Erie is two hundred 
and four feet deep, with a surface level of five hundred and sixty-five 
feet; Lake Ontario is four hundred and fifty feet deep, with a surface 
level of two hundred and thirty-four feet above the sea.” “An old, exca- 
vated, now filled channel, connects Lake Erie and Lake Huron.” Andon 
of these ancient glaciers corresponded in a general way with the present 
one of these ice rivers flowed from Lake Huron, along a channel now 
filled with drift, and known to be at least one hundred and fifty feet deep, 
into Lake Erie, which was then not a lake, but an excavated valley, into 
which the streams of Northern Ohio flowed, one hundred feet or more 
below the present lake level." It will be granted, no doubt, that a glacier 
occupies the bed, or lowest part of the valley through which it flows, and, 
that like water, it flows from a higher to a lower point of elevation, or 
in other words, that it flows down hill, instead of up hill. But if Profes- 
sor Newberry's position, that formerly a glacier flowed from Lake Huron 
States that the surface of Lake Erie is five hundred and sixty-five feet 
above the sea level and is two hundred and four feet deep, which locates 
its bed at three hundred and sixty-one feet above the sea level, and two 
hundred and eighty-seven feet above that of Lake Huron. If it be true, 
which is granted, as stated, that “an old, excavated, now filled channel 
connects Lake Erie and Lake Huron, then must it also be true, granting 
that the beds of these lakes occupied the same relative position to each 
other in the glacial period that they now do, that whatever glaciers flowed 
through it must have flowed from Lake Erie in the direction of Lake 
Huron, and found an outlet in that direction, instead of from ‘‘ near the 
length, by abont twenty-five miles in width, saying nothing as to its 
thickness, lifting itself, by the mere force of gravity, from a lower up 
to a higher plane of elevation, which would appear to be impossible. 
The probabilities are that the furrows in the ** old, excavated, now filled 
channel, connecting Lakes Erie and Huron," were made by running or 
floating icebergs, long ages after the work of excavating the beds of the 
great lakes by the glaciers had been completed, and not by true glacial 
ice. The difficulty of reconciling the observed facts in the case, seems 
to accrue from allotting too short a space of time to the glacial period. 
It would appear more perspicuous to allow an excavating period, corres- 
EN UL 4 2 o o o ood e yeu 
