The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1899-05-03
ORIGIN OF NIAGARAS
HOW THE GREAT FALLS OF TODAY
CAME INTO EXISTENCE.

Ice Gorge During the Glacial Pc
Rod the Irresistible Flow Of the
Mighty Cataract Was Formed.
Professor Herman Leroy Fairchild Of
Rochester university has brought to light
some strange and romantic geological
facts regarding Niagara's formation in
prehistoric days that are worthy Of atten-
ton He said:
1.-THE ancient ancestors Of Niagara were
hundreds of miles from tho present loca.
ton. These extinct rivers have left re-
markablc gorges across the ridges separat-
ing the north and south valleys of Ska
neatelcs, Otisco, Onondaga Butternut
and Limestone, and they lie along line
joining the villages of Marcellns, South
Onondaga, GAINESVILLE, High Bridge and
Mycenae. To trace Niagara's ancestry
back to the time when it Is possible to
discover any trace of the course of the
original waters 1t Is necessary to go back
to the glacial period. The last great in.
vasion of ice buried all of New England,
all of New York state except small area
near Salamanca, all of the basins of the
great lakes and the Mississippi valley as
far south us nearly to tho mouth OF the
Ohio river
"This ice body some thousands OF feet
in thickness, uncovered the land 1t had
invaded not by general melting of Its sur
face, but by the slow recession Of Its 'front.'
age. The summer floods from the rainfall
and the ice melting carried immense
9 al bn cDnth load,
ing valleys and filled them deeply with
tho detritus. When the ice front retreatcd
to the north side of the divide separating
today the northward drainage Of tho st.
Lawrence from the southwark drainage of
the Mississippi and Susquehanna, the wa
tiers were impounded between the ice front
and the north sloping land surfaces.
"The glacier occupied the Laurentian
basin and its present low northward and
eastward passes, and consequently all the
waters were forced across the divide to the
southwark When the west end Of tho
Superior basin was uncovered, 1t held
glacial lake, which we now call Lake Du-
luth In the same way a local glacial lake
was formed in tho southern end OF the
Michigan basin, known today as Lake
Chicago, and in the western end of Erie
basin, called now Lake Maumee The
lowest of the three outlets of these lakes
was that of Lake Chicago, which formed
the channel now utilized by the Chicago
drainage canal. Eventually, by the con-
tinled recession of the ice front, land was
uncovered either side of the Michigan val
10y lower than the St. Croix outlet of
Lake Duluth or the Fort Wayne outlet of
Lake Maumee, and the Chicago outlet
robbed the two higher outlets.
"Iho high glacial waters in the Eric
basin were finally extended north and east
by the continued recession of tho ice dam
until they covered all of the Erie basin,
the lower Huron basin and the southwest
ern part of the Ontario basin. These wa
tiers are now called Lake Warren. At this
time the ice front lay against the high
ground southwark from Syracuse and
therefore blocked the low pass by tho Mo-
hawk valley, which was lower in altitude
than the Chicago outlet of Lake Warren
waters.
LAS the Ice front weakened and rccedcd
In the Syracuse region, the Warren waters,
which formed in New York belt of sew
eral miles width along the ice border and
reached southwark up the valleys Of the
present "finger" lakes, crcpt eastward at
their proper level.
lone summer day the critical moment
came, and tho high water found escape
eastward past the ice to the open Mohawk
Hudson. At first this may have been an
insignificant spilllng, but the flow in.
creased, and with the down cutting Of tho
waste weir an irresistible flow was estab-
lishcd. The first spillway cannot pre-
cisely locate, but it Is certainly one of two
east and west gorges in rock, one being
two miles cast of GAINESVILLE, the other
two miles southwest
"With the farther retreat of the leo front
other lower canyons were cut, and series
of great rock cuts were made leading
across the ridges that separated the north
and south valleys In which the glacial wa
tiers were pondcd at their successive levels.
Tho most western Of the canyons heads on
the Onondaga limestone, about four miles
north by east of Skancateles and conveyed
the food Of hypo-Warren waters eastward
to the Otisco valley, building a huge delta
south of Marcellus village.
From this valley the waters escaped to
tho Onondaga valley by another splendid
canyon east of Marcellus; with an cnor-
nous delta at South Onondaga village.
From tho Onondaga valley three fine can
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