Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/619

* NIAGARA FALLS. 527 NIAGARA RIVER AND FALLS. and Suspension Bridge being eonsolidated. The government, under tlie uriginul eliarter, is vested in a niaycir. eleeted biennially, and a common council, and in administrative officers who are appointed by the mayor. The water-works are owned and operated by the municipality. Popu- lation, in I'JUO, 19,457. NIAGARA FALLS, fonnerly Cufton, or Svsi'E.NSiox Bridge. A town of W'elland County, Ontario. Can., on the west bank of Niagara River, below the falls. 20 miles northwest of Bnllalo. It is opposite Niagara Falls City, U. S., with which it is connected by three bridges and electric railways, and is the junction of the main lines of railways entering that city with the Grand Trunk Line of Canada. Its chief features are Wesley Park and Queen Victoria Niagara Falls Park, which covers an area of 154 acres, extends along the river for two and a half miles, and commands the finest views of the falls. Ex- tensive works similar to those on the United States side are in course of construction to utilize the water power. Pupulation. in 1001, 4244. NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE. A town in Lincoln County. Ontario. Can., on Lake On- tario, at the mouth of the River Niagara, 36 miles distant by water from Toronto (Map: On- tario. D 4). Burned down in December, 1813, by the American General McClure on his retreat, it was rebuilt, and is known as a summer and pleasure resort with good bathing, boating, and fishing. Population, in lllOl. 1258. NIAGARA RIVER AND FALLS (Iroquois ■Jorakarc. thundering water). The Niagara River flows from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, and is the outlet for the whole drainage of lakes Su- perior, Huron. Michigan. Saint Clair, and Erie. The surface of Erie, where the river begins, is .320 feet higher than the level of Ontario, where it ends. The water is clear and pure. The river is 33 miles long, its general direction is from south to north, and it forms the boundary be- tween New York State and the Canadian Prov- ince of Ontario. The volume of water which en- ters Niagara is 280.000 cubic feet a second. In its upper course it is very wide (below Grand Island from 214 to 3 miles) ; just above Niagara Falls it is less than a mile in width, and below the falls it rushes headlong through a deep and narrow gorge to the clifl' at Lewiston. where it emerges on the plain of Lake Ontario, and is again a broad and peaceful river. As it emerges from Lake Erie and enters the plain, it is crossed by a low ridge of rock, in passing which the river is swift and troubled for about two miles. Then it is smooth again, flows slowly over the plateau, has an average depth of 25 feet, and its surface is interspersed with many small islands. For nearly three-fourths of its length it cannot be said to have a valley, for it flows upon the surface of the plateau, and its fall from the lake to the rapids above the cataract is only 20 feet. Then .a sudden and complete change in its aspect occurs. It is dropjied by the short rapids beginning a little above Goat Island 52 feet, which is the prehide to the fall over the majestic cataract, where it plunges 160 feet down into the plain, a total descent of 212 feet from the head of the rapids. At the foot of the American Falls there is no great depth of water, massive and broken rock- in the bed having prevented the deep excavation that would othcrwi.'^e occur; but the enormous mass of water, 20 feet deep at the centre and about nine-tenths of the whole volume, which thunders over the Canadian or Horseshoe Falls, has excavated a basin extending from shore to shore for 1% miles below the falls that is fully as deep as the height of the falls. The effect of this deep basin or reservoir is to retard and smooth the waters so far that rowboats cross the river and the little steamer Maid of the Mist is able to approach the cataract. The basin is succeeded by the narrow gorge which continues to Lewiston, its width rarely eciualing one-fourth of a mile, and its depth to the bottom of the river varying from 200 to 500 feet. Its walls are so steep that they can be climbed only at a few places, and they reveal the geologic struc- ture of the plateau — the bedded rocks of lime- stone, shale, and sandstone lying almost hori- zontally. The fall of the river in the gorge, seven miles long, is about 100 feet. The confined waters pour tumultuously along at an estimated speed of 30 miles an hour, and the terrific onrush and battle of the waters make a spectacle that is equal to that of the falls themselves. About midway in the gorge the channel makes an abrupt, short turn to the left, and here the onslaught of the torrent has worn out a vast circular basin forming the celebrated Whirlpool. From the 'hirlpool the channel is broader and less steep. The plateau ends abruptly at Lewis- ton, and its edge, where it steeply descends to the littoral plain of Ontario, is marked l)y a long escarpment parallel with the shores of the lake, known to geologists as the Niagara Escarpment, which rises to about 250 feet above the level of Ontario. The last seven miles of the journey is over the littoral plain with a fall of only about three feet. The position of Niagara Falls marks the pres- ent extension of the work of the river in cutting this great gorge. It is not known by wliat chan- nel or channels Lake Erie may have discharged its waters in pre-glacial times ; but geologists have proved that the Niagara River began its existence during the final retreat of the great ice sheet ; in other words, most students of glacial geology agree that the history of the river covers only a small part of the period since the beginning of the age of ice. The great work of the river has been in excavating the gorge from Lewiston back to the present position of the cataract. The falls first poured over the edge of the escarpment at Lewis- ton and began to dig their way back through hard limestone and sandstone, interbedded with a coherent though softer shale, and for a part of the distance the material was incoherent drift. The process of excavation may be ob- served at the falls. The rocks lie in layers and the upper covering of loose drift yields readily to the wash of the waters. I'nder the drift is hard limestone, called the Niagara limestone, 80 feet in tliickness: beneath the limestcme lies the softer Niagara shale, with a thickness of 50 feet; then for 35 feet is the Clinton group, an alter- nation of limestone, shale, and sandstone, the whole resting upon a bed several hundred feet in thickness of soft sandy shale, which is not known to be interrupted except by a single hard layer of sandstone from 10 to 20 feet thick. These shales and sandstone are called the Medina formation. The hard top layer of limestone