The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1901-08-05

Il American and Niagara had
better not put ii off too long.
| If they should, they would perhaps find
Buffalo lingering hint of past great
ness and the "Pan-Am." an annal of
antiquity, but Niagara would be no
| more.
| For, according to Professor Grablu,
| Rennselar Polytechnic institute eX
pert on rocks and stones, before the
great cataract, which is now cutting
its way backward along the bed of the
| river to Lake Erie at the rate of about
| four feet a year. reaches the head of
| Grand island less than five miles away,
| there will be no Niagara. The whole
| system of the Great Lakes, he asserts,
is changing. The waters of Lake MiChi-
gan at Chicago are slowly rising, and
| Lake Erie is growing shallow. Event
ually. unless a dam is built TO prevent
| it, as has been proposed Lake Michi-
gan will overflow to the Illinois river,
as it did centuries ago in the last pre-
glacial period; the basin of Lake Erie
will he tributary to Lake Huron, the
current will be reversed in the Detroit
| and the ST. Clair channels, and the
whole lake system will drain southward
into the Mississippi. Then Niagara will
vanish.
! This will not happen in a minute. In
| fact, it will not begin to happen much
short of thousand years. Lake Michi-
gans waters are rising at the rate OF
only nine or ten inches in a century.
At this rate it will take about 1000
years for the Illinois river to compete
strongly with Niagara river for the
honor of draining the lake basin. Fiji
teen hundred years later, according to
Professor Grabau's calculations, the
Illinois river will get all OF the surplus
water of the lakes unless, in the
| meantime, man shall arrest natures
eCCentriCitics. The shoaling of Lake
Erie at Cleveland and at other points
on the Ohio shore has already given
cause for alarm and the stoppaGe OF
| this natural movement in the general
| drainage system of the lakes, which is
attributed to the gradual fitting of the
| land in the Northwest. has been sort-
ously considered. Tho plan proposed to
stop the tendency is to erect an i'm
mense dam in the Niagara river above
Buffalo, with the object of checking
and eventually decreasing the outflow.
This fitting of the territory in the
northW est, as a writer in the New York
sun recently pointed out, is a curious
phenomenon for which the Ceologst s
| cannot NbOllV account If is MIA
recorded in the beaches of the old
glacial lakes, which had a uniform clc-
walton while forming, but now are no
longer of uniform height above the
sea level, rising progressively toward
the northeast. The movement is still
going on. Professor q. X. Gilbert has
made an extended study of the prob
lem and he has been led to the assump-
tion that the whole lake region is being
lifted on one side, or depressed on the
other so that its plane is bodily cantcd
toward the South-sOuthWest, The rate
of change, he estimates, is such that
the two ends of a line 100 miles long
and lying in "A south-sOuthWcst dircc-
tion are relatively displaced to the cX-
tent of four-tcnths of "A foot in CEN
tury. From this it follows that the
waters of each lake are gradually ris-
ing on the southern and western shores
or falling on the northern and eastern
shores, or both.
Opposition to the proposed dammnG
Of Niagara comes mainly from the capi-
talists who are interested in the de-
Velopment of electrical power at the
falls. They fear dam would interfere
with their business. 1t probably would
but If scientific investigation shall con-
firm the need of one, they will have to
take their chances.