Iron County register., 1899-12-07
CHICAGO'S IMPENDING FATE.
When Niagara Dries Up This City 1t
Is Said Will Be Completely
Submerged.

Prof. q. X. Gilbert, who has for SOme
| years maintained that the level of the
great lakes of America is slowly alter
| ing, has just reverted to the subject in
greater detail. He states that the re-
gion is turning upon an axis, the land
rising on one side and sinking on the
other; on the one hand the shore, so to
say, encroaches upon the lake, on the
other the water upon the land. The
process may be roughly illustrated by
filling saucer nearly full of water. and
then giving it a gentle tilt. The fluid
falls on one side and raises on the
other, until at last it overflows. This
axis runs diagonally across the region.
On Lake Ontario the land about the
village of that name is sinking; at Ham
iiton. on the western end. it is rising.
On Huron. in Georgian bay. it is also rfs-
ing. but in the southwestern part of the
lake, and at the southern end of Michi-
gan, the contrary movement is in proc
ess. Chicago itself is thereby endan-
gered, and Prof. Gilbert threatens it in
about five centuries. with the fate
which, according to Moore, has be-
fallen the ''towers of other days" in
Loeb Neagh. The subject has for sew
eral years engaged the attention oil
men OF science in the United States anG
Canada: there is. indeed. no more inter
esting chapter in geology than the his
tory Of the great lakes of North Amer
lea.
Prof. Spencer, in paper read eight
years ago to the Geological society of
London, described the original condi-
ton of the river basin of the St. Law
renee. Soundings in Lake Michigan
nave proved that, were it dry. it would
be divided by central ridge into two
valleys-the northern communicating
with the basin of Huron along the line
still followed by the water, the south
ern draining along a buried channel
into Saginaw bay. on the southwest
side of Huron. The two streams ulti-
mately united on the dry bed of that
lake and then passed out to Lake On
tario, not by Detroit. Erie and Niagara,
but by the way of Georgian bay and
through another buried channel which
entered the lake little east of Toron-
TO. In those days, of course. the falls
did not exist, ard even after the subsi-
dence of the land about the upper wa
ters of the St. Lawrence had formed
the lakes, Erie did not at first send its
waters northward from its eastern end
to Ontario. but was drained by river
flowing southwark to the Mississippi.
The formation of Niagara was the re-
suit of later movements. as both Profs.
Gilbert and Spencer have pointed out.
which did not even then cease. At vari-
out places around the shores of the LAKE
lines of terraces can still be recognized.
which were fretted on the slopes when
the waters stood at higher levels.
These terraces are not at uniform
heights above the present surface. and
therefore prove that a process OF
''warping" has been going on. or, in
other words, that the upper movement
has been unequal. Fec some little time
it has been known that movement was
still in progress, and we now learn that
in some plaees-roughly speaking. to-
ward the southwest part of the area
it is in downward direction. This also
is not without precedent. One of the
most noted instances is on the shores of
the Baltic. The southern part of Swed-
district called, Scania-is slow
y sinking. The exact rate. perhaps, is
not vet quite certain, but about Malmo
it probably exceeds yard in a cen
tury. In the more northern parts,
however, the land has certainly risen
during the very late geological times.
and it is believed to be still on the move |
Of course. if this fitting in the lake re- |
gion continues Erie will be once more |
cut off from Ontario. If not from Huron; |
IL and Michigan viii discharge their |
waters southwark to the basin of the |!
The drying up of Niagara
and the flooding of Chicago will be Sc
rious matters, but we may console our
selves with the reflection that neither |
will happen for many a long year, and |
that when the time comes American in. |
genuity viii be equal to the emergeo- !
Standard.