Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/431

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��movetnent ripened into the organization of ail aaaociiition to proiBOte legislulion for pre- serving the scenery of the Falls of Niagara, Jlr. Howard Potter of New York being presi- dent, and Hon. J. Hampden Kobb, clmirman of the executive committee.

Throngli the efforts of tliia Ningara-Falls tissociation, an act was passed, in lrt83. provid- ing for a commission entitleil * The commis- sioners of the state I'escrvation nt Niagara.' and giving them power to proceed through tbe courts to condemn the land^ needed. Kx- Lieut.-Gov. William Doraheiraer is the presi- dent of this board ; and the other members arc President Anderson of Bochesler nnivei'sily, Hon. J- Hampden Robb, Hon. IShcrman S, Rogers, and Andrew H. Green. With some modifications made necessary by changed con- ditions, they adopted the plan pro|K)sed by the state snr\ey. The lands selected were then surveyed, and their value appraise*! by a com- mission of very high charauter, ap[x>iiited by the court, the total vahiation of ihe lauds being $1, +33, 4^9. 50. The report of the commis- sioners of the resei'vation was mode to the pireseut legislature, anil a. bill to appropriate this sum was intiodiiced. The Niagara-Falls association worked in every part of the state to arouse public opinion to the imiwrtnncc of making this appropriation, and the commis- sioners labored most earnestly among the legis- lators and the people. The battle was a hard cue against ignorance and narrow- minded selfishness ; but the victory is complete. The legislature, by more tlinu a two-thinis majority, has appropriated the 81.423,429.50, and the governor has approved the act.

Aft«r six years of almost continuous effort on the part of the active friends of this en- lightened project, it is secured by a law which declares that the lands are purchased by the state in order that they may be ' restored to, and preserved in, a sUite of ntiture.' and that evei'y part of them shall he forever free of access to all mankind.

��paratively soft Ni.igara shale of about the same thickness. Nos. 3 and 5 are also strata of hard rock, with a sorter rock intervening. The river formerly ]»lnnged over the escarp- ment at Queenston, about seven miles below the present cataract, and where the perpen-

��TiiK. recession of the falls of Niagara will be nnderslood by reference to the accompanying

figure.

The strata, as will be seen, dip gently (twenty-five feet to the mile) towaiil the south. The upper stratum (No. 1) consists of com- pact Niag.ira limestone about eighty feet in thickness. Underneath it (No. -2) is the com-

���dicular fall must have been npwaitls of three hnndi-ed feet. From that point to the present cataract, the riveif now occupies a narrow gorge from five bnndred to twelve humlred feel iu width, and from two hundred and fifty to three hundred and fitly feet in depth. The maaiier of the recession is easily nnderstood from a glance at the diagram. The softer rocks (Nos, 2 and 4) rapidly wear away, thus under- mining the harder rocks above, and leaving them to project over, and flnnlly to break olf in hnge fragments, and fall to the bottom, where they would lie to obstruct the channel, were it not for the great momentum of water i-on- stantly pouring upon them, and causing tliom to grind together until they are pulverized and carried away piecemeal. The continuity of the underlying soft strata insures the con- tinuance of a projectingstratumat the top, and a tterpendicnlar plunge of the water when passing over it.

Double interest attaches itself to the Niagara gorge, when we consider the evidence of its l>ost-glaeial oi-igiu. and thus are permitted to regard it as a chrononieter of the glacial age.

That the Niagara Iliver can have occupied its present channel only since the glacial period, was shown by Professor Newberry when he proved that the Cuyahoga River, emptying into Lake Erie at Cleveland, occupied in preglaciol times a channel about two hundred feet below its present bed. Iioi-ings in the bed of the Cuyahoga extending that distance in glacial clays before reaching the rock. To receive a tributary at that depth, the level of Lake I'^rie must, of course, have been corresiwndingly depressetl : and, as the lake is nowhere much more than two liuudrud feet in depth, we may confidently say, that, before the glacial period, such a boJly jis Lake Eric did not exist, but

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