Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 49.djvu/31

Rh shows that the end of the Glacial period in the lake region was long ago.

How Niagara Falls may be used to ascertain the Antiquity OF Man.—The relation of Niagara Falls to the deserted shores of the lake region and the high terraces is now pretty-well known, and the old water margins have been traced over wide areas; but these may be much further extended and their relations to other regions beyond the drainage basins of the Great Lakes be ascertained, so that we may hope that Niagara Falls may be used as a means of at least roughly estimating the age of the deserted river banks on which the oldest inhabitants left their scanty treasures long ago. Concerning this application, it seems as only a question of the work of so many men and so much time.

To the geologist, the birth, life, and death of Niagara Falls show no more rapid changes than come within the limit of modern observations. There have been no sensational catastrophes, although in the popular mind these changes come with new and startling revelations, so that the most conservative observer may be surprised. The changes in the history of Niagara have now been told, so far as we know them. We can still watch the river performing its wonderful amount of work and the slow recession of the falls, as shown in Fig. 17.

If the reader of this sketch of the history of Niagara Falls desires the fuller information upon which this study is based, he is referred to Duration of Niagara Falls and the History of the Great Lakes, by the present writer, whose labors have been brought together by the Commissioners of Niagara Falls Reservation, under the presidency of the Hon. Andrew H. Green, whose liberal policy is not merely to preserve the falls as an international park, but to make known their scientific history.

the ascension of the balloon Phenix, made from Stassfurt, Prussia, in December, 1894, the weather being-misty at starting, the temperature at first increased up to a considerable height, but afterward fell, and at 32,150 feet stood at -20° C At about 29,500 feet the balloon passed through a veil-like stratum of cirrus clouds, consisting-of perfectly formed flakes of snow. At 31,500 feet the thermometer dropped to-54°, and indicated only -11° in the sun's rays. The highest temperature recoi'ded was 43°. During the ascent of three hours and the descent of two hours and twenty minutes the balloon traveled one hundred and eighty-six miles, although it was almost calm at the surface.

Observing the growth of bamboos in the Botanical Garden of Buitenzorg, Java, Mr. Gregory Kraus noticed one plant which added to its length 229 centimetres a day for fifty-eight days. Another plant grew 19·9 centimetres, and a third nineteen centimetres a day for sixty days. The longest single day's growth observed was 42·45 centimetres.