The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1854-01-25
Recession Of Niagara.

| MT. Iyell, the famous geologlst, IN
lecture delivered some years since, re
marked, in regard to the recession Of
of Niagara, that tho river had certainly
cut its way back from the whirlpool
three miles below whcro the falls arc
now, and that the whole body of water
once fell over the rocks at the whirlpool
He spoke Of the changes still going Oh
in the shape Of the falls the American
fall was getting TO be like a crescent
and the Horse Shoe getting straight
The recession now is foot in year
aud therefore it had taken 5000 years
for the falls to go back from the whirl.
pool to their present position. In 1875
Father Hennepin saw them and there
was then third fall, or cascade on the
Canada side, which fell across the Horse
Shoe fall from west to cast. In 1850.
Karl, Dane, saw them, and all this
was gone but in his letter in the Gen.
tleman's Magazine for Us he says there
had been third fall, but the rocks had
all tumbled down. One great argument
that the falls were miles further down
is, that on the top of the limestone at
the falls on Grand Island. and on each
shore, there is n freshwater formation
twenty-five feet thick it contains shells
muscles, with the valves united, that
have been quietly deposited in still
water. Three species of the mel phia,
one Of the limnia, ono of the planorbis.
and one OF the valvata. are found buried
in this deposit and all these species are
found now living in the still water near
Grand Island Half mile below the
falls VIC also found these shells in the soil
above the limestone SO that the falls
must have been so far below this spot.
as to place it out of the reach of rapids,
aud to make the waters in which this
deposit was made as still and calm ns
they now are at Grand Island. And if
they have cut their way up three miles
from the whirlpool in $4,000 years, why
not have rcccdcd even 4 greater number
of miles in $4,000 years! Though, when
the falls were at Lewiston, there were
several falls, as is now seen at Rochester
in the Gcncscc falls; one fall over the
hard quartz or sand at the button; one
over the hard protcan group; one over
the limestone. A mastodon's tooth was
found twelve feet down in the fresh
water deposit, opposite the falls; this
Elastodons tooth was there when the
falls were at the whirlpool, and twelve
feet of mud and sand were afterwards
deposited on it by the river. This will
give us an immense number Of years in
which to ef,ct the recession of the falls
Mr.. Lyell thought, further that the
reunion in the cliffs near Lockport
New York; was merely one of those
bays where the sea broke further into
the land. He also said that perhaps in the
| course OF the next ten thousand year:
the falls would recede two miles more
and that then they would be only eighty
feet high, and fall over solid mass Of
limestone, and would take an immense
timc-ages-to get back to Lake File
and drain that. The dip of the bed was
twenty five feet in n mile and the slope
Of the river thirteen feet in Il mile; 81
that every mile the falls went back, they
lost forty feet in height. When al
Lewiston they were nearly four hun
dred feet in height Since MIR. Lycl
delivered the lecture, the breaking ava,
of table rock has occurred.