May 15, 1885. 



SCIENCE, 



399 



movement ripened into the organization of 

 an association to promote legislation for pre- 

 serving the scenery of the Falls of Niagara, 

 Mr. Howard Potter of New York being presi- 

 dent, and Hon. J. Hampden Robb, chairman 

 of the- executive committee. 



Through the efforts of this Niagara-Falls 

 association, an act was passed, in 1883, provid- 

 ing for a commission entitled ' The commis- 

 sioners of the state reservation at Niagara,' 

 and giving them power to proceed through 

 the courts to condemn the lands needed. Ex- 

 Lieut. -Gov. William Dorsheimer is the presi- 

 dent of this board ; and the other members are 

 President Anderson of Rochester university, 

 Hon. J. Hampden Robb, Hon. Sherman S. 

 Rogers, and Andrew H. Green. With some 

 modifications made necessary by changed con- 

 ditions, the}- adopted the plan proposed by the 

 state surrey. The lands selected were then 

 surveyed, and their value appraised by a com- 

 mission of very high character, appointed by 

 the court, the total valuation of the lands being 

 SI, 433,429. 50. The report of the commis- 

 sioners of the reservation was made to the 

 present legislature, and a bill to appropriate 

 this sum was introduced. The Niagara-Falls 

 association worked in every part of the state 

 to arouse public opinion to the importance of 

 making this appropriation, and the commis- 

 sioners labored most earnestly among the legis- 

 lators and the people. The battle was a hard 

 one against ignorance and narrow-minded 

 selfishness ; but the victory is complete. The 

 legislature, by more than a two-thirds majority, 

 has appropriated the $1,433,429.50, and the 

 governor has approved the act. 



After six years of almost continuous effort 

 on the part of the active friends of this en- 

 lightened project, it is secured b\' a law which 

 declares that the lands are purchased by the 

 state in order that the}- may be ' restored to, 

 and preserved in, a state of nature,' and that 

 every part of them shall be forever free of 

 access to all mankind. 



paratively soft Niagara shale of about the 

 same thickness. Nos. 3 and 5 are also strata 

 of hard rock, with a softer rock intervening. 

 The river formerly plunged over the escarp- 

 ment at Queenston, about seven miles below 

 the present cataract, and where the perpen- 



THE NIAGARA GORGE AS A CHRO- 

 NOMETER. 



The recession of the falls of Niagara will be 

 understood by reference to the accompanying 

 figure. 



The strata, as w r ill be seen, dip gently 

 (twenty-five feet to the mile) toward the south. 

 The upper stratum (No. 1) consists of com- 

 pact Niagara limestone about eight}- feet in 

 thickness. Underneath it (No. 2) is the com- 



SECTION OF THE STRATA ALONG THE NIAGARA RIVER, FROM 

 LAKE ONTARIO TO THE FALLS. 



dicular fall must have been upwards of three 

 hundred feet. From that point to the present 

 cataract, the river now occupies a narrow gorge 

 from five hundred to twelve hundred feet in 

 width, and from two hundred and fifty to three 

 hundred and fifty feet in depth. The manner 

 of the recession is easily understood from a 

 glance at the diagram. The softer rocks 

 (Nos. 2 and 4) rapidly wear away, thus under- 

 mining the harder rocks above, and leaving 

 them to project over, and finally to break off in 

 huge fragments, and fall to the bottom, where 

 they would lie to obstruct the channel, were it 

 not for the great momentum of water con- 

 stantly pouring upon them, and causing them 

 to grind together until they are pulverized and 

 carried away piecemeal. The continuity of 

 the underlying soft strata insures the con- 

 tinuance of a projecting stratum at the top, and 

 a perpendicular plunge of the water when 

 passing over it. 



Double interest attaches itself to the Niagara 

 gorge, when we consider the evidence of its 

 post-glacial origin, and thus are permitted to 

 regard it as a chronometer of the glacial age. 



That the Niagara River can have occupied 

 its present channel only since the glacial period, 

 was shown by Professor Newberry when he 

 proved that the Cuyahoga River, emptying into 

 Lake Erie at Cleveland, occupied in pregiacial 

 times a channel about two hundred feet below 

 its present bed, borings in the bed of the 

 Cuyahoga extending that distance in glacial 

 clays before reaching the rock. To receive a 

 tributary at that depth, the level of Lake Erie 

 must, of course, have been correspondingly 

 depressed ; and, as the lake is nowhere much 

 more than two hundred feet in depth, we may 

 confidently say, that, before the glacial period, 

 such a body as Lake Erie did not exist, but 



