22 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 
is made up entirely of loose stones scarcely rounded at all, lying 
now just as they were washed off the hills and down the gully 
thousands of years since. I will not attempt to say how many 
thousands ; but when we find from the evideuce of the lake dwel- 
lings in Europe how little change has taken place in the level of 
the European lakes during the historic period, the change which 
is manifest in Lake George points to a very remote period. 
Herodotus, B.c. 500, speaks of the lake dwellings ; and the modern 
antiquary assigns to those of Switzerland a date 1500 B.c. Yet 
so little has the level of the Lake of Zurich changed in that time 
that the dry winter of 1853-54, by lowering the water in the lake 
one foot below previous levels, revealed to Dr. F. Kellor the arti- 
ficial arrangement of some of the pieces of wood laid bare by the 
receding water, and thus led to his remarkable discoveries. This 
persistence of level is very strong evidence in favour of the view 
that there has been no great change in the rainfall there for thou- 
sands of years, and probably the same may be said of Australia. 
But to return. Some of these watercourses are 10 to 12 feet 
deep, and the gravel that is moved in them by rain now is very 
small indeed compared with some of the stones which appear 
embedded in the delta they have cut through. One of the largest 
of these deposits is at Douglas House, and as you stand on the 
side of the hill you can see its rounded form starting at something 
like 50 feet above the level of the lake. Jt spreads out some 400 
yards to the lake, and about as much laterally. It is now covered 
with large trees 2 to 3 feet thick, but its form shows clearly 
that it is a deposit from the gully above, which extends only half- 
a mile, and does not seem to drain more than a square mile of the 
hills. All about the surface of the delta, as well as in the section 
referred to above, are indications of the loose and stony character 
of the Geposit, while the gully, cut as it has been out of hard 
metamorphic rocks, bears witness to the tremendous power of 
water. In January this year 7 inches of rain fell here in two 
days, yet the water scarcely ran at all through the delta, what 
did come down finding its way to the lake by soaking through the 
