and the Reasonings of some Authors respecting them, 287 



The sides of the Niagara river below the Falls present a nar- 

 row belt of table land, extending back a short distance from the 

 verge of the precipice to the foot of a pretty high and steep 

 bank, composed apparently of diluvium.* 



These diluvial banks deserve the minutest attention of eeolo- 



o 



gists, inasmuch as they may enable them to detect more clearly 

 than from other data, the former positions of the cataract. It 

 is to be presumed that if they have been washed by the Falls, 

 throughout their whole distance to Queenstown Heights, traces 

 of the fact would be discoverable along their base. I searched 

 in vain a portion of that line for shells, and other river deposits, 

 such as are seen on Goat Island above the Falls. They may, 

 however, exist, and it is important that they should be sought 

 for. These banks are described by Mr Bakewell as curved and 

 water-worn, with large boulders in them, showing, he conceives, 

 that the river once flowed nearly on a level with their summits. 

 But all these appearances are just as indicative of diluvial action, 

 to which, on any hypothesis, the boulders certainly belong. 



Supposing the existing drainage of this region to have begun 

 immediately after the catastrophe which reduced Lake Erie and 

 its sister lake to their present dimensions, or supposing it to 

 have followed that far mightier event which overspread the 

 whole continent with the debris of its rocks, in either case we 

 are bound to make the Trenton Falls, and the several falls on 

 the Gennessee River, contemporaneous. Now an important 

 question arises here : Are there any facts in relation to the rate 

 of recession of those falls analogous to those of Niagara? None 

 are, I believe, at present known, though these streams admit of a 

 much more exact determination as to changes of position in 

 their falls, than is practicable in the vast and irregular horse- - 

 shoe fall of the greater cataract of Niagara. 



Bearing upon this discussion, there is a still more important 

 question, namely, what features did the surface of the region 



* Goat Island is based upon a fine ground homogeneous clay in horizontal 

 stratification, and of a texture so exquisitely comminuted, as to indicate the 

 almost total absence of any currents in the waters from which it was depo- 

 sited. As one can hardly attribute such deposition to the impetuous current 

 of the present river, it seems very naturally to point to a time when a tran- 

 quil lake covered the place of the present rapid Niagara. 



i i u % 



