Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-01-29

A break in the crest of Niagara Falls
which tore off great segment of rock
| which formed the rim has aroused in
terest in the proposed treaty between
| this country and Canada to provide
| measures for the preservation of this
great natural wonder Of the continent.
While knowledge of tIe event was dis
| closed after the wholesale erosion had
passed into history, it has impressed the
public, which thinks of the ages during
which gradual erosion has been in
| progress. The conclusion that the
change has not affected the maghifl-
cence OF the Falls Is generally accepted.
Advice that the Senate should "ratify
at once the pending treaty with Can
ada" is given by the Buffalo Evening
News, which states that the measure
has been Endorsed by the Niagara
Board of Control, an international body
created for the purpose of conserving
the scenic beauty of the cataracts." The
News advises that "the time has come
to take the problem of Niagara out of
the hands of unqualified practitioners
who have for so long given 1t absent
treatment and turn 1t over to the en-
| gineers."
Recalling that the provisions of the
treaty would preserve the beauty of
/ the Falls and incidentally provide for a
greater diversion of water for power
purposes" the Jackson Citizen-Patriot
points out that "the flow on the Ameri-
can side would be increased and made
even more by q series of underwater
DAMS" and argues that "if the project
has all the merits claimed for it and If
the Parliament of our Northern neigh
Dor saw fit to accept it, probably the
members Of the Senate committee had
personal reasons for obstructing action"
THE Niagara rock slide, which leaves
most Of us agape and adds intellectually
to the problem of preserving the Falls,
appears to the geological mind as a
mere incident in an epic that Nature
began writing countless thousands of
years ago." remarks the Atlanta Jour-
nal, and that paper observes that mod
ern means of meeting the situation are
adopted, as "the first thought of au-
thoritieS seems to have been the need
Of an aerial survey" and that the air.
plane Is modern mans trump card in
any game" The Journal gives force to
the slide with the comment that Mature
performed swiftly and without anes-
thetic a magnificent If somewhat mex
pltcable feat Of surgery"
X X X X
SIT may be considered in the light of
an esthetic catastrophe" according to
the Cleveland Plain Dealer, while the
New York Evening Post calls it "a
major event in Niagara's history" for
in few hours as much rock was torn
away from the brink of the worlds most
celebrated cataract as normal erosion
would have removed in 1000 years."
The Milwaukee Sentinel says: "Insen-
safe water can wear away great ram
parts of rock as time takes its course.
Consider what man, directing his eff
forts with his intelligence, may accom-
plish in the course of the ages in which
the water is engaged in gnawing away
the rock from Luna Island to Buffalo"
Niagara poured over its precipice of
stone year after year, age after age"
says the Dayton Daily News. "An inch
of the wall wears away in the course of
year. Finally a section of the wall
scores of feet thick falls away, and the
eternal Falls of Sunday evening were
something else on Monday morning"
The Minneapolis Star adds: 1.-THE cave
in is an epochal event In Niagara's his
tory. The fact that 1t Is the first to
occur since the white man first saw the
Falls, and that 1t was unObserved by q
single eyewitness, adds to the mystery
surrounding the event, even If it does
prove that Nature sadly needs a press
agent who might have arranged for
more public viewing Of the cave-in pre-
A4ACACs IL 4NAoSd16 CbeIl AAO1u lCloCA w.
gether for another century or so, she
will spare engineers for " time the
trouble of patching up her physiognomy
with artificial parapetS and bridge
work."
\ X X @
The cause is emphasized by the Hart
ford Courant with the statement thak
"the break occurred at about ttree@
quarters 81 the distance from the Amer