500 JOURNAL OF, SCIENCE. 
that it 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 thou- 
sands of years since. I will not attempt to say how many thousands;. 
but when we find from the evidence of the lake dwellings 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 sB.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 artificial 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 thousands of years, and probably the 
same may be said of Australia. But to return. Some of these water- 
courses 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. It spreads out some 400 yards to 
the lake, and about as much laterally. It is now covered with large trees 
two to three 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 deposit. The gully, cut as it has 
been out of hard metamorphic rocks, bears witness to the tremendous 
power of water. In January this year seven inches of rain fell here in 
two days, yet the gully scarcely ran at all through the delta, what water 
did come down finding its way to the lake by soaking through the 
gravel; in fact, the heaviest rain now only makes a little stream three 
or four feet wide and a few inches deep. The greater level of the lake 
in that long past period is not difficult to understand, when looking at 
the evidence of tropical rains which the gullies afford. At the same 
time, the obvious insignificance of the present rainfall as compared with 
that which formed the deltas and filled up the lake, and the enormous 
duration of the present order and condition of things as proved by the 
discoveries in the European lakes, show how groundless were the fears 
gravely expressed in 1871 that the lake would rise up and cover Bun- 
gendore and Collector. The rainfall on the lake in 1870 was 50 inches, 
double the average rainfall, which is 25 inches, and it is not to be 
wondered at that the lake rose at an unusual rate. Still this rain, 
heavy as it was, only served to cut little gutters in the older deposits 
which had been brought down the gullies. The primary object in 
placing the recording gauge on Lake George was to ascertain the rate of 
evaporation from such a large body of water, the conditions at the lake 
being very favourable for such an investigation. The record began on 
February 18, and the time since is too short to justify any assumption 
of the rate of evaporation there; but I may mention some of the facts 
that have been recorded bearing on this question. In 68 days the level 
