The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-07-24
NIAGARA WILL RUN DRY.
GREAT LAKES WILL DRAIN INTO
MISSISSIPPI

III LccIcpbL l.
In Three Thousand Years, Says Prof
Grabaw.
Before Niagara Falls, which are now
cutting their way backward along this
bed of the river to Lake Erie at the
rate of about four feet year, reach
the head of Grand Island, less thar
five miles away, there will be no Mag
4 ara The whole system of the great
Z lakes is changing. The waters of Lake
Michigan at Chicago are slowly rising
and Lake Erie is growing shallow.
Eventually, unless a dam is built to
prevent it, as has been proposed, Lake
Michigan will overflow to the Illinois
river, as it did centuries ago in the
last preglacial PERIOD the basin of
Lake Erie will be tributory to Lake
Huron, the current will be reversed in
the Detroit and st. Clair channels, and
the whole lake system will drain south
ward into the Mississippi.
Then Niagara will Vanish. From a
majestic cataract the falls will dwindle
to few threads of water falling over a
precipice, as may be seen in the sum-
ner season in the upper falls of the
Genesee at Rochester. All that they
will carry will be the drainage of the
immediate neighborhood
There isn't any occasion for alarm
for the present, however, for all this
will take place in from two to three
H thousand years from now, and many
things may happen before then. Also,
as it is extremely unlikely that the
elixir Of life will be discovered in this
n generation, nobody now alive need
worry much about it. But that is what
the great lake system is tending to. as
Is set forth in an interesting Guide to
the Geology and Paleontology of Mag
ara Falls and Vicinity" by Professor
Amadeus w. Grabau, S. D., of Rens-
selaer Polytechnic Institute arranged
and published in most complete form
by John NJ. Clarke, the state paleon-
tologist, as a bulletin of the New York
State Museum.
The book, which is handsomely Illus
trated with Photographic plates, has
been prepared, so Mr.. Clarke says in
brief preface, with the especial purpose
Of affording to visitors to Buffalo dur
ing the season of the Pan American
Exposition a guide in their tours
through this region, renowned for
scenic features and classic in it's geolo-
gy. The ground has been the subject
OF a multitude of scientific treatises,
but in no single place before has their
general purport been brought together,
and Mr.. Clarke thinks that they can
not fail to prove serviceable to large
element of the public.
4 1t will be from five to six hundred
years before the tendency of the lakes
to new drainage bed is plainly mani
Tested, according to the authorities CT
ted by Professor Grabau. The rising
of the waters of Lake Michigan at
present is at the rate of nine or ten
inches a century The first water to
overflow will be that at some high
stage of the lake and the discharge
may at first be intermittent. For a
mean lake stage such a discharge will
begin in about a thousand years, but
after fifteen hundred years there will
be no interruption.
K In about two thousand years the IL
linois river and the Niagara will carry
equal shares of the surplus water of the
great lakes. and in thirty-five hundred
years, for certain, there will be no Nj
agara.
That is. if man. in the shape of the |
United States government, does not in
terfere. The shoaling of Lake Erie at |
Cleveland and other points on the Ohio |
shore has already given cause for !
alarm and the stoppage of this natu- |
raj movement in the general drainage |
system of the lakes, which is attribu- |
ted to the gradual fitting of the lands |
In the Northwest, has been seriously |
considered.
The plan proposed to stop the ten
dency is to erect an immense dam in |
the Niagara river above Buffalo, with |
the object of checking and eventually |
decreasing the outflow. 1t is argued |
that this would not greatly decrease
the power of Niagara now valuable,
but there are authorities who contend |
that this argument is absurd and the
plan is opposed on that account.
This fitting of the territory in the
northwest is curious phenomenon for
which the biologists cannot wholly ac-
count 1t Is plainly recorded in the
beaches of the old glacial lakes, which
had uniform elevation while forming, |
but now are no longer OF a uniform
height above the sea level, rising pro-
gressively toward the northeast. The
is still going on.
! Professor G. K. Gilbert has made an
study of the problem and he
has been led to the assumption that the
whole lake region is being lifted on one
tide, or depressed on the other, so that
is plane is bodily canted toward the
south southwest. The rate of change, |
lie estimates, is such that the two ends
il a line one bundled miles long and
ying in a southwest direction are re-
atively displaced to the extent of four
enths Of foot in century From
his it follows that the waters of each
axe are gradually rising on the south
I'm and western shores or falling on the ]
lorthern and eastern shores, or both
Niagara Falls came into existence
when the waters of Lake Iroquois,
which in ages long past was the prede-
cssor of Lake Ontario, fell beneath the 7