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 lRil>rmUdfrom the Quahtf.ri.y Jovrnm, of Scifncf. AprU, 1875.I 
 
 
 
 NIAGARA. 
 
 Glacial and Post-Glacial Phenomena. 
 ri-J ' ^y Thomas Belt, F.G.S. . ., 
 
 ^HE glacial phenomena of the distridl of Niagara have 
 ^2b' been so often described, and the cause of, and the 
 ^ tfme occupied in, the excavation of the nver gorge, 
 so often discussed, that I did not «P«<^' 7^.?"' °" ^i^"'*'. 
 mas-dav. I made my first visit to the great falls, to have any- 
 Sine new to record, but went quite prepared to acquiesce 
 S the conclusion thkt has been received for more than hirty 
 years, that the whole of the gorge from Queens own to the 
 falls has been excavated since the glacial period. Since 
 hi^ theory was first advanced, man> geologists have visvted 
 the district, and, so far as I can learn, no one has called in 
 nuestion this verdiift ; it has been accepted aa an esta- 
 blished faft and various calculations of the time necessary 
 to excavate the gorge have beer made, throwing back the 
 occurrence of the glacial period from 30.000 to 300.000 
 
 ^'?rwas°with great surprise, therefore, that I found that ^at 
 first Tght this'conclu^on was not e-dent, and that on 
 further examination, it was not tenable. I feel that in 
 having to oppose the theory that the gorge o Niagara has 
 beJi fxcavated since the glacial period, I shall be adding 
 another scientific heresy to the many that are recorded 
 aganst me but the heresies of to-day are the truths of 
 Sorrow, and I shall at least give my reasons for believing 
 thaTriy explanation of the proble©,ought to be classed m 
 the latter, and not in the former category. 
 
 The question of the excavation of thefrge cannot be 
 clearlv understood without some knowledge of the glacial 
 depoS^s, and I shall in the first place describe the glac.al 
 and afterwards the post-glacial phenomena. So many 
 authors have written on thl subjeft, that I sha 1 only men- 
 J^on those from whose works I have obtained inform^ation of 
 
 VOL. V. (N.S.) 
 
,r^ 
 
 Niagara. 
 
 re 
 
 importance. Foremust in the list stand the names of Sir 
 Charles Lyell and Professor James Hall, who visited the 
 district together in 1841, and who afterwards published the 
 conclusions, that they appear to have arrived at to^^ether. 
 Sir Charles Lyell, in the " Proceedings of the Geological 
 Society of London " for 1842 and 1843, and more fully in his 
 " Travels in North America," where there is an excellent 
 coloured bird's-eye view of the falls of Niagara and adjacent 
 country, and also a geological map of the distria, 
 in which the reader who has not visited Ni.Hgara may 
 correct the false impression he is likely to obtain, from the 
 necessary foreshortening in the bird's-eye view, of the small 
 distance between the falls and the whirlpool, which are, in 
 reality, four miles apart. Professor James Hall published 
 nearly identical opinions in the " Boston Journal of Natural 
 History" for 1843-44, and more fully in the "Geology of New 
 York," Part IV., in 1843. The latter work contains not 
 only a bird's-eye view of the distrift, but an excellent map 
 of the falls, construQed from a trigonometrical survey made 
 in 1841, by Mr. Bakewell : afterwards in 1842, correfted 
 by Professor Hall and two engineers. The whole of 
 Professor Hall's observations on the glacial phenomena 
 of the State of New York should be read by those interested 
 in the study of the glacial period. They abound in original 
 remarks, and in clear descriptions of the succession of the 
 superficial deposits, and many of the conclusions at which 
 this eminent state geologist arrived more than thirty years ago 
 are only now receiving in England the attention they deserve. 
 Professor Hall also describes other rivers running into Lake 
 Ontario from the south, which, like Niagara, have had their 
 pre-glacial channels filled up, and have since taken a more 
 westerly course to the lake. 
 
 In 1859, Professor Ramsay published, in the " Quarterly 
 Journal of the Geological Society," his observations on the 
 glacial phenomena of Canada, made during a trip to that 
 country in the preceding year. In this memoir he pointed 
 out, I believe for the first time, that the river must have 
 commenced to cut back the gorge at Queenstown, before the 
 close of the glacial period. 
 
 To Dr. Newberry., the accomplished chief of the Geological 
 Survey of Ohio, I am greatly indebted, not only for much 
 personal kindness and assistance, but for an early copy of 
 his " Surface Geology," to be published in the forthcoming 
 ■ volume on the "Geology of Ohio," fromwhich I have obtained 
 a vast amount of information respefting the glacial deposits 
 of the distria of the great lakes. A very large amount of 
 
 :m 
 
 -:m 
 
 '^ima.i^ 
 
>v 
 
 ♦4 
 
 s of Sir 
 ited the 
 ,hed the 
 o^^ether. 
 :ologicaI 
 ly in his 
 jxcellent 
 adjacent 
 distri(5t, 
 ira may 
 from the 
 he small 
 h are, in 
 lublished 
 [Natural 
 y of New 
 ains not 
 lent map 
 rey made 
 correiSled 
 whole of 
 enomena 
 nterested 
 1 original 
 )n of the 
 at which 
 years ago 
 y deserve, 
 into Lake 
 had their 
 ;n a more 
 
 Quarterly 
 )ns on the 
 p to that 
 le pointed 
 nust have 
 before the 
 
 aeological 
 for much 
 •ly copy of 
 rlhcoming 
 ^e obtained 
 al deposits 
 amount of 
 
 
 
 information is contained in the well-known works of Prof. 
 Dana, not only in his admirable " Manual of Geology," 
 but in various memoirs, amongst which 1 may especially 
 mention his " Geology of the Newhaven Region," published m 
 the " Transactions of the Conneaicut Academy" in 1870. I 
 may mention, that with the exception of Dr. Dawson, of 
 Montreal, the whole of the most eminent of the geologists 
 of eastern North America are now agreed that the prin- 
 cipal gluciation of America was effefted by land-ice, though 
 there is abundant proofs, as I shall have occasion to show in 
 this paper, that at a later stage, boulders were scattered 
 over the country by floating icebergs. That later stage of 
 floating ice was due, however, I contend, both in America 
 and Europe, not to a submergence of the land below the 
 ocean, but to the produaion of immense lakes of fresh 
 water, by the damming up of the drainage of the 
 continents by ice that flowed principally down the ocean 
 depressions. In this conclusion, I have as yet no 
 supporters amongst the geologists, either of America or 
 Europe, if, indeed, I may not except Professor Hall, who 
 informed me, in conversation, and authorised me to pubhsh 
 his opinion that the sea has never encroached on south- 
 eastern New England since the deposition of the " till," and 
 that the terraces of the Hudson and Connedticut were pro- 
 duced by the blockage of their waters by ice that flowed 
 down the ocean bed, and of the presence of which we have 
 proof in the immense moraines that compose the whole of 
 
 Cape Cod. 
 
 Glacial Phenomena. 
 
 The rocks through which the gorge of Niagara is cut are 
 limestones, sandstones, and shales. These rocks are all 
 rounded and smoothed, and the limestones are frequently 
 scratched and grooved. Besides the coarser ice marking, 
 the rounded and smoothed surfaces of rock, when examined 
 closely, exhibit innumerable fine scratches, which have been 
 ascribed by Hall to small particles of sand imbedded in the 
 ice that moulded the rocks, and he has shown the improba- 
 bility that this moulding and fine scratching, which is uni- 
 versal over the whole northern part of the State of New 
 York, wherever the rocks are of sufficient hardness to re- 
 ceive and retain striae, could have been eff^efted by icebergs. 
 Lying on these glaciated rocks are superficial deposits of 
 drift, containing beds of unstratified clay, with boulders, 
 sands, and loam. These are spread over the whole distndl 
 like a mantle, so that natural exposures of the bed rock are 
 rare, excepting in the gorges cut by the river. 
 
The cliffs bordering the Rorge, from the falls lo Queens- 
 town, are everywhere capped by these deposits ; one of the 
 mos interesting and instrud^.ive seClions of which is exposed 
 TtUie whirlpool, four miles below the falls, -t the end oj the 
 filled-up pre-glacial gorge that runs down to St. David s. 
 The snowing seaion exhibits the succession of deposits 
 that fill the old gorge :— 
 
 Seftion through the old gorge at the whirlpool, along the line A b in Plan, Fig. 3. 
 
 The lowest bed seen by me at the seftion is. that marked 
 A, which consists of clean yellow river sand with occasional 
 s;ams and rolled lu-ps of clay Below these fn^^^^^^^^^^^ 
 were exposed, when Lyell described the beds.* strata ot 
 pebbles, cemented together by carbonate «/ l''^^' °^j;^y'"f 
 laminated clays. I saw one large mass of the pebbly con- 
 gZerates lying on the beach, and have shown its posit on 
 fi The seaion underlying A, but I have not inserted the 
 aminated beds mentioned by Lyell. as some that I saw 
 low down in the gorge had evidently slipped Jown from A 
 and B, the whole face of the unconsolidated materials fill ng 
 the gorge, showing many slips produced by ram and rost 
 
 The bed of laminated sands (a in seaion) graduates up- 
 wards into fine laminated silt (b in seaion). the powder of 
 
 * Travel* in North America, vol. ii. p. 95' 
 
 % 
 
 rf««B!M*^-' ■ - ■ 
 
h 
 
 [Jueens- 
 
 s of the 
 exposed 
 d of the 
 David's, 
 deposits 
 
 .CZl 
 
 1, Fig. 3. 
 
 it marked 
 )Ccasional 
 inds there 
 strata of 
 overlying 
 ebbly con- 
 ts position 
 sorted the 
 iiat I saw 
 wn from A 
 •ials filling 
 ind frost, 
 duates up- 
 powdcr of 
 
 ff*A. 
 
 ^\^^ 
 
 which is almost impalpable when rubbed between the fingers 
 H ghe upthis silt is unlaminated, and contains a few small 
 fnlular stones. It gradually changes upwards into c, which 
 L f true 'Wt7//' or - gmnd morane.r rr-aming large angu- 
 lar and suba^gular stones. mP ly or great s.^e. scratched 
 and Krooved. All the blocks imbecMed in the clay are of 
 ?he local limestones. A few rounded boulders, of northern 
 or'g n' ie on the surface slope, but they have evidently 
 rolfed down from above. The higher part of c contams 
 fewer and fewer stones, until it merges into D, which 
 s composed of unstratified clay or 'W»7/." without stones. 
 Of this there is from twenty to thirty ^^et >n thickness 
 the upper part being more sandy than the lower, and 
 some^fmes obscurely stratified. On the surface are a few 
 rndd boulders of granite or gneiss, all far travelled from 
 the north, and it is noticeable, that whilst the angular 
 blocks in the " till" are all of local origin, those lying on 
 U.e surface are almost, if not quite, always of dis ant deri- 
 vation, and are invariably rounded or subangu ar ho e 
 seen on the surface, near the whnlpoo , were all of gramie 
 o' gneiss. The continuation of the till c and D in seftion is 
 shown in some small valleys that run into the gorge at the 
 whirlpool. 
 
 Fig Z 
 
 i« .,...„ »l,i. ffrree at the whirlpool, c, till with itonei; D, till 
 
 Here the till (c and d in se(5tioL lies upon the rounded and 
 smoothed surface of the limestone. 3omeof the blocks of lime- 
 sSne at th?s point are of great size ; one I "^^^^f^^^^ was 9 feet 
 by 6 feet its thickness not seen, as it was half buried in the 
 ground On the opposite side of the river, and about a mi e 
 distant from it, I saw exaftly the same succession of beds 
 exposed inThe cutting of the railway, half way between the 
 railway bridge and L^wiston. The northern end of the old 
 fiUed-up gorie at St. David's shows a similar succession of 
 beds with the addition, that on mounting the plateau trom 
 the lower one of the lake of Ontario, I found, exposed in 
 
 
E« 
 
 ir^an 
 
 5 Niagara. 
 
 railway cuttings, that the till without stones was capped by 
 stratified beds of clay and sand, with u few lines of small 
 
 pebbles. 
 
 The above seaions may be taken as typical ones ot the 
 superficial beds that mantle the whole of the northern part 
 of the States of New York and Ohio, and much of Canada, 
 and I proceed to show that they are exactly what would he 
 produced by the accumulation of a great mass of ice m tne 
 north, that graduail 7 progressed southward, and that after- 
 wards melted back again as gradually as it had ad- 
 vanced. . • , 1 1. 
 
 Let us carry ourselves, in miasmation, back to the pre- 
 glacial times, when the old river ran through the filled-up 
 gorge from the whirlpool to St. David's, and try to follow 
 the successive steps by which it was filled up, and ulti- 
 mately completely obliterated, or rather concealed. Let us 
 bear in mind that the Niagara runs northward, in the di- 
 reaion from whence the ice came. Hall, Dana, Newberry, 
 Lyell, and Ramsay, have all pointed out both from the 
 scratchings of the rocks and from the transported blocks m 
 the till, that the movement of the ice was from the north. 
 It has also been clearly shown that the ice flowed up the 
 St. Lawrence valley, from the north-east. It advanced up 
 the slope of that great valley principally by the overflow o'' 
 the higher parts of the ice over the lower. That there was 
 some movement of the lower part of the ice from the pres- 
 sure from the north is, however, sufficiently proved by the 
 diff'erent formations that crop out from east to west, having 
 furnished stones to the till that covers the rocks immediately 
 to the south of them. Thus, according to Hall, huge blocks 
 of Medina sandstone are moved southward unto the top ot 
 the Niagara limestone. In If.:; manner, numerous masses 
 of the Niagara limestone are drifted forward unto the Onon- 
 dago salt group, and still further south, on the Chemung 
 limestone, lie great numbers of immense blocks from the 
 Onondago salt group to the north. The size of these f f-j- 
 ments bears a proportion to the distance they have been 
 transported from the parent block, the largest being nearest 
 to it. This is charafteristic only of the till, and not to the 
 northern boulders that are strewn over the surface, and 
 which have not been transported from their distant northern 
 homes by land ice. 
 
 The immediate effeft of the ice, as soon as it had dammed 
 up the mouth of the valley of the St. Lawrence, must have 
 been to form a great fresh water lake in front of it, on which 
 it was constantly advancing. When, after filling the basin 
 
 »%: 
 
 tfJ| l^ ) Hrt\riMU ' g « iMWW ' "'' ' ^ * *^^ **' '" 
 
apped by 
 of small 
 
 es of the 
 riern part 
 Canada, 
 would be 
 ice in the 
 lat after- 
 had ad- 
 
 the pre- 
 filled-up 
 to follow 
 and ulti- 
 . Let us 
 n the di- 
 ^ewberry, 
 from the 
 blocks in 
 the north, 
 ed up the 
 'anced up 
 verflow o'" 
 there was 
 , the pres- 
 ed by the 
 St, having 
 imediately 
 age blocks 
 the top of 
 us masses 
 the Onon- 
 Chemung 
 from the 
 these f f^- 
 have been 
 ng nearest 
 not to the 
 rface, and 
 it northern 
 
 id dammed 
 must have 
 t, on which 
 : the basin 
 
 Niagara. . 7 
 
 of the Lake of Ontario, it had, in its progress south-west- 
 ward, reached the base of the cliffs of the Queenstown 
 escarpment, or had dammed back the water to that level, 
 the commencement of the filling up of the old Niagara 
 gorge was at hand, and from that time, during the advance 
 of the ice and its subsequent retreat, the deposits of sand, till, 
 and boulders shown in the seftions were made. The first 
 step was the partial arrest of the flow of the old river, 
 causing it to deposit at a higher level than its original bed, 
 first pebbles forming the conglomerate at the base of the 
 seaion in fig. i, and then the thick bed of river sand, when 
 the current was still more impeded. The bed of fine silt 
 (b in fig. i) marks the time when the flow of water to the 
 north-=!asL was completely stopped. Dr. Newberry, several 
 years ago, first drew attention to the fadl, that at some time 
 during the glacial period, all the great lakes of North 
 America drained towards the Ohio and the Mississippi, and 
 since then, several deep channels by which they did so have 
 been described. 
 
 I did not see this fine bed of silt m any of the other sec- 
 tions I examined, and I think its preservation in the one at 
 the whiripool must have been entirely due to the protedlion 
 the neariy perpendicular walls of the gorge afforded agamst 
 the great pressure of ths ice that passed over it. Its upper 
 portion contains small angular stones, and it gradually 
 merges into the unstratified till, containing large angular 
 
 blocks. r , • .-11 
 
 It is probable that, during the advance of the ice, no till 
 or grund morane was formed below it, but that the smooth- 
 in"- and scratching of the surfaces of the solid rocks were 
 then effefted, and that the till was deposited beneath the 
 ice when it was melting back, and its pressure being gra- 
 dually lessened. Mr. Bonney has objefted to the theory of both 
 vhe erosion of rock surfaces and the deposition of till having 
 taken place below the ice.* But the two actions belong to 
 different times ; the one was accomplished during the ad- 
 vance, the other during the retr-.at of the ice. The effefts 
 are similar to those of a mountain torrent, which, when full, 
 carries all before it, but which, when its waters lessen, 
 deposits stones and mud in its course. During the advance 
 of the ice, there could be- little deposition below it, all the 
 stones held at the bottom of the moving mass being pro- 
 bably ground to powder ; but, as it melted back, the stones 
 and clay held within ^t would be deposited at its foot. 
 
 • Nature, x-oLx., p. 85. 5 
 
 -Jj 
 
.1 
 
 I 
 
 . 
 
 
 L 
 
 8 
 
 Niagara. 
 
 Dana, in an excellent paper on the Glacial Era in Nsw 
 England, has ably iirgued this question, and has shown the 
 enormous power that moving ice, 6000 feet thick, with a 
 pressure of at least 300,000 pounds to the square foot, would 
 have in abrading the rock surfaces below it, and carrying 
 forward in its lower part the loose material it had broken 
 off or caught up from the rocks below, and how the whole 
 of this would be deposited at tho melting of the ice * It 
 would greatly conduce to clear descriptions of glacial phe- 
 nomena, if the old term " till " were confined to this deposit. 
 It is the "Erie clay" of Dr. Newberry, the "Lower 
 Boulder clay " of Wood, the " grund morane " and the 
 " moraine profonde " of others. " Erie clay " is a local 
 name, and includes stratified beds of a different origin. 
 " Boulder clay "' is often a misnomer, as frequently this 
 clay contains no Doulders. "Grund morane" d^nA. " n:oraine 
 profonde " indicate a particular mode of origin, which, 
 though probably corredt, is still theoretical. " Tiii "' is an 
 old English word, long applied to this deposit, and may be 
 used by every one, whatever theory of origin they may 
 favour. I suggest, (heretore, that it should be confined to 
 designate the unstratified clay with angular blocks, gene- 
 rally of local origin, that lies at the bottom of all the glacial 
 beds, and that the term " boulder clay " should be applied to 
 the higher beds, which show the adtion of water as well as of 
 ice. The term " drift " might be applied to any glacial 
 deposit the nature and origin of which is doubtful, in the 
 same way as the name " trap " is used for many igneous 
 rocks of unascertained composition. 
 
 The preservation in the St. Lawrence valley, and in the 
 Great Lake distridl, of beds of loose laminated sands and 
 clays lying below the till is due, as has been shown by Dr. 
 Newberry, to the fadt, that the ice was rising against the 
 slope of the land. It had, in consequence, little erosive 
 power, but advanced principally by the slipping of the 
 "higher portions of the ice over the lower. When it topped 
 the southern water-shed of the valley of the St. Lawrence, 
 its adlion produced a different set of phenomena, for its 
 motion was down the slope of the land, and its erosive 
 power was vastly increased. With this subjedl I shall not 
 here deal, nor shall I attempt to trace the limits of the ice 
 in its greatest extension, as that would lead me into a dis- 
 sertation on the whole of the glacial period in North 
 America, far beyond the scope of this paper. 
 
 • American Journal of Science and Arts, vol. v., March, 1873. 
 
 . jjimj i m i 
 
 wamam 
 
 tsmm» 
 
 snr 
 
in N2W 
 own the 
 , with a 
 »t, would 
 carrying 
 1 broken 
 le whole 
 ice * It 
 ;ial phe- 
 
 deposit. 
 " Lower 
 and the 
 
 a local 
 t origin, 
 ntly this 
 ■' rr.oraine 
 , which, 
 ii " IS an 
 [ may be 
 hey may 
 )(ihned to 
 ;ks, gene- 
 be glacial 
 ipplied to 
 well as of 
 ly glacial 
 ;ul, in the 
 y igneous 
 
 nd in the 
 sands and 
 ivn by Dr. 
 3jainst the 
 ;le erosive 
 ig of the 
 1 it topped 
 Lawrence, 
 la, for its 
 its erosive 
 shall not 
 i of the ice 
 nto a dis- 
 in North 
 
 1873. 
 
 : 
 
 i 
 
 'i k' 
 
 1/^: 
 
 Niagara. 
 
 9 
 
 As the ice melted back, it deposited the unstratified till 
 under its receding foot, leaving a continuous mantle of it 
 behind. Lying on the top of the till are seen scattered 
 rounded boulders (E in seaion), often of great size, of gra- 
 nite, gneiss, and other crystalline rocks, that must have tra- 
 velled from the Lawrentian hills in the far north. Amongst 
 these, rocks of local origin are as scarce as in the till below 
 those of distant derivation are rare. These foreign boulders 
 are scattered over the surface, as if dropped by some agent 
 that has left no other record of its movements. The rounded 
 far-travelled blocks lie on soft unconsolidated beds that have 
 not been disturbed. In some places, as on the top of a low 
 hill on the Canadian side of the falls, I found great numbers 
 of these blocks, and in some parts of northern New England 
 and New York, great trains are found in lines along the 
 sides of hills, as if stranded on a beach. They are found on 
 the western prairies, according to Professor Hall, in long 
 trains, '' where, for many miles, the difference in elevation 
 is not more than 50 feet ; and here we observe long lines of 
 boulders stretching away for miles beyond the reach of 
 vision, as if once formerly a line of coast."* Speakmg of 
 the valley of the Hudson, Professor Hall says:— "In the 
 vicinity of Albany and Troy, I have searched in vain for a 
 boulder or pebble of granite, or of any rock older than the 
 Potsdam sandstones in the deposits below the clay, while, in 
 a period subsequent to the deposition of the clays and sands, 
 boulders of granite are by no means rare."t 
 
 Only one satisfadlory explanation has been given of the 
 presence of these far-travelled blocks on the surface of the 
 undisturbed loose beds of sand and clay, namely, that they 
 hr.ve been dropped from floating ice, and most writers on the 
 subjea have concluded that they are proofs of the submer- 
 gence of the land below the sea. There is certainly an area 
 of land running from Lake Champlain northv/ards that has 
 been elevated from below the level of the ocean since the 
 glacial period, but there is no ' evidence whatever that the 
 sea extended over the plateau of Lake Erie, and the entire 
 absence of marine remains renders the supposition un- 
 tenable. And if we follow the natural setiuence of events 
 *hat must have ensued during the retreat of t'.ie ice, we 
 shall see that there is no occasion to call in the agency of 
 the sea. Foi just as, during its advance, the ice from 
 the north-east had blocked n^, the great valley of the St. 
 
 • Natural History of New York, part iv., p. 321. 
 f Ibid., p 320. 
 
 VOL. V. (n.S.) "^ 
 
 :i 
 
 1 
 
10 
 
 Niagara. 
 
 been depressed, and 
 dammed back by the 
 Lawrence, being still 
 ward and northward. 
 
 Lawrence and changed it into an immense lake, so, during its 
 retreat, it must have done the same. Probably it did so to a 
 greater extent, not only because, in its retirement, it had 
 left moraines and deposits of till, blocking up the deep chan- 
 nels draining into the Ohio and the Mississippi, but because, 
 during the greatest accumulation of ice, the land north- 
 wards, and especially the area of the St. Lawrence, had 
 
 an immense sheet of fresh water, 
 lower part of the valley of the St. 
 filled with ice, stretched south-west- 
 On the northern shores of this great 
 lake glaciers still came down from the Lawrentian hills, 
 and gave birth to icebergs that floated southward, dropping 
 boulders of granite, gneiss, and other crystalline rocks, on 
 the bed of the lake, or stranding on its shores, and there de- 
 positing their freight. During this time were also formed 
 many stratified beds of sand and gravel that lie above the 
 till, and to it belong most of the deposits of the " terrace 
 epoch " of Dana which were formed, not after, but during 
 the glacial period. 
 
 Before leaving this branch of my subjedl, I must again 
 advert, as I have done in previous papers, to the great im- 
 portance of a proper appreciation of the effedt of the stop- 
 page of the drainage of the norther*! parts of the continents 
 during the glacial period. It was not only a period of 
 erosion and transportation of rocks, but of great fresh water 
 deposits ; and I fully believe that the fresh-v/ater and inland 
 sea beds that Professor Ramsay proves to have been de- 
 po>..ited in old red sandstone and Permian times were due to 
 former glacial periods, that of the Permian epoch being 
 greater than the last one, and resulting in such a lowering 
 of the level of the ocean, that there was great destruiftion of 
 marine life by the increased salinity of the sea. 
 
 There are many proofs that the ice was thickest and 
 highest during the glacial period in the bed of the Atlantic. 
 That which advanced up the valley of the St. Lawrence 
 cam*' :"rom the diredtion of Greenland, and the whole of the 
 eastern coast of America, down as far south as New York, 
 must have been blocked up by it. This is proved, not only 
 by the many fresh-water beds and terraces due to ihe dam- 
 ming back of the rivers, but by the direftion taken by the 
 continental ice. Thus, over the higher summits of New 
 England, the scratches point to the south-east and not to 
 the east, as they would have done if the ice had been free 
 to move diredlly towards the ocean. I think that this 
 shows that the bed of the ocean was then occupied by ice. 
 
J.. 
 
 uring its 
 d so to a 
 t, it had 
 ep chan- 
 because, 
 d north- 
 nce, had 
 h water, 
 F the St. 
 uth-west- 
 ;his great 
 ian hills, 
 dropping 
 rocks, on 
 there de- 
 10 formed 
 ibove the 
 " terrace 
 it during 
 
 ust again 
 great im- 
 the stop- 
 :ontinents 
 period of 
 esh water 
 md inland 
 been de- 
 cre due to 
 och being 
 L lowering 
 trudtion of 
 
 ickest and 
 e Atlantic. 
 Lawrence 
 hole of the 
 New York, 
 d, not only 
 
 the dam- 
 ken by the 
 ts of New 
 and not to 
 
 1 been free 
 that this 
 
 ied by ice, 
 
 w^^Z^,^ 
 
 Niagara. 
 
 zx 
 
 and it could not fail to be so, for to the land it occupied the 
 posi'cion of a great valley, down which the ice from the north 
 wjuld naturally flow. I do not think however that the 
 time of the greatest extent of ice m the sea-bed was the 
 came as that of the greatest thickness of ice on the land ; 
 for, as the margin of the ice of the ocean-bed moved south- 
 ward, it would cut off the moisture-bearing currents tra- 
 velliiig towards the land, and gather to itrelf the precipita- 
 tion from them. Thus, I think it was that the ice on the 
 land shrunk back, at the time of the greatest extent of that 
 which occupied the bed of the Atlantic; and we have, both 
 rAmerica^nd Europe, a period of land-ice, followed by 
 one of fresh-water deposits and fresh-water borne ice- 
 
 ^"^endeavoured to show in my paper, published in this 
 journal in Oftober last, that the ice from Greenland also 
 reached the western coast of Europe. It passed across Ice- 
 land, and overflowed Caithness, ipeland is so hugely gla- 
 ciated, that we may conclude the northern ice invaded it 
 also and, extreme as the view may seem, I can find no 
 otht. satikaaory explan.aon of the faft, that the jvhde o 
 the south of England is mantled by fresh-water glacial 
 beds, than on the supposition that, at the height of the 
 glacial period, the Engliah Channel was blocked up to the 
 fouth-west hi ice that extended in an unbroken mass from 
 Greenland. I sought in vain, before my last visit to North 
 America, for a satisfaftory solution of the fesence of the 
 fresh-water gravels and floated boulders of the south of 
 England, and was driven to suppose that one or more bar- 
 riers of land must have existed in the western part ot 
 the British Channel; but, after seeing how th« ice in the 
 bed of the Atlantic blocked up the water-shed of the eas em 
 seaboard of North America, ten degrees of, l^tiude further 
 south, I have no difficulty in imagining that it "lay ^Iso 
 have blocked up the English Channel, and caused the foi- 
 mation of the high and low-level gravels, the beds of the 
 Rh ne, and the floated boulders of Devonshire, Somerse - 
 shiJe, 'and Wales. I venture to predidt that evidence w 1 1 
 yet be found of the encroachment of the edge of this ice 
 from the north-west upon the Contment, probably upon the 
 coaTt near Brest, and I also expeft that traces will be dis- 
 covered of the great flow of water that must have taken place, 
 either round the south-eastern termination of the ice, or 
 around the mountains of Britany, into the valley of the } 
 Loire. 
 
13 Niagara. 
 
 Post-Glacial Phenomena. 
 
 When the ice had retired so far back as to leave the 
 channel to the St. Lawrence valley again open, the waters 
 of Lake Ontario began to re-flow in that diredlion. From 
 the whirlpool, northward, they did not run in their old 
 channel, but took a more easterly course. This may have 
 been because the lowest outlet through the moraines left 
 by the ice was in that direction, as Dana has suggested ; 
 but I think it more likely that it was because the ice retired 
 from the eastward first. If we look at a map of the 
 southern side of Lake Ontario, we shall find that most of 
 the rivers have been diveited in the lower part of their 
 courses to the eastward, indicating that the cause was not 
 one of accidental configuration of the ground, but some such 
 general one as the early retirement of the icy barrier from 
 the eastern part of the lake. 
 
 Wherever the river first commenced to flow, there it was 
 likely to cut down through the rocks, for it would soon 
 make for itself a channel through the loose drift lying on the 
 surface ; and between the banks of that channel it would be 
 confined, and there only operate on the hard rocks below, 
 just as, in copper engraving, the acid only adts on the plate 
 in the lines cut through the soft wax covering it. To make 
 clear the argument in the question we have to discuss, 
 namely, how much of the gorge in which the river now 
 runs has been excavated out of the solid rocks since the 
 glacial period, I must, in the first place, dire<5l attention to 
 the sketch plan (Fig. 3) of the old and new gorges at the 
 whirlpocl, four miles below the falls. The sketch is founded 
 principally on a small plan in Lyell's " Travels in North 
 America," and partly from my own observations and sketches 
 on the spot. I regret that I cannot give an accurate plan, 
 and I could not learn that any complete survey has ever 
 been made. 
 
 Standing at the summer-house, on the American side, at 
 the point where the river takes a sudden bend to the east- 
 ward, I looked across the whirlpool to the old gorge oppo- 
 site, and the question at once presented itself to my mind — • 
 from this point there are two channels downwards, one 
 excavated before, the other after, the glacial period ; to 
 which does the one upwards to the falls belong? This 
 question does not appear to have occurred to the authors of 
 the theory, that the whole of the gorge through which the 
 river now runs, from the falls to Queenstowr is post- 
 glacial. But why might not the old pre-glacial river have 
 
ii. 
 
 Niagara. 
 
 ti 
 
 ave the 
 waters 
 From 
 lieir old 
 ay have 
 nes left 
 jgested ; 
 e retired 
 i of the 
 most of 
 of their 
 was not 
 ime such 
 rier from 
 
 re it was 
 aid soon 
 ig on the 
 would be 
 ks below, 
 the plate 
 To make 
 discuss, 
 iver now 
 since the 
 tention to 
 jes at the 
 s founded 
 in North 
 i sketches 
 rate plan, 
 r has ever 
 
 in side, at 
 ) the east- 
 3rge oppo- 
 ly mind — • 
 i^ards, one 
 period ; to 
 ng ? This 
 authors of 
 which the 
 is post- 
 river have 
 
 >!3t2^ 
 
 # * 
 
 J, f tf^^Lft 
 
 excavated the gorge abr ve the whnlpool. as we 1 as the old 
 one below it, and the present river have ""^y J^^^^^V''^. 
 rorge from Queenstown to the whirlpool, and, frorn that 
 noint upwards, have re^occupied and cleared out the old 
 channeP On the face of it the latter alternative seemed 
 to r more Hkely. for the river above the whirlpool is run- 
 n°n7ira direa^ ine for the old gorge, and »s. moreover 
 about the same width as it is, the gorge to Queens own 
 being narrower. I found, with surprise, that this important 
 
 P^. 3. 
 
 3- 
 
 Plan of the old and new gorges of Niagara river at the whirlpool. 
 
 rf^'v 
 
 v^^- 
 
 point had been overlooked, and that it had been assumed, 
 without discussion, that the gorge above the whirlpool be- 
 longed to the new, and not to the old river. 
 
 I determined at once to devote the time I could spend at 
 Niagara t^ the elucidation of this question, and soon found 
 some data bearing on the sub eft. Lyell and Hall both 
 nodced the terracls formed in the superficial deposits, when 
 ?he r^er commenced to cut back the new gorge from 
 Oueenstown. These mark its course when >t flowed along 
 Uie top of the plateau, and it seemed to me unlikely, that if 
 
 mmam 
 
14 
 
 Niagara. 
 
 the corce above the whirlpool was pre-glacial, that the post- 
 elacial river would have followed exadtly the same line 
 when it was bounded only by the superficial deposits that 
 marked the older features of the country. I found ihat, 
 above the whirlpool, the post-glacial river had run m 
 different channels, having, apparently, often changed its 
 course in the superficial deposits. 1 bus Lyell has described 
 one of these deserted channels that ran from the muddy 
 rivei- to the whirlpool.* Another, I noticed, ran down from 
 behind the town of Niagara-falls. In some places, the 
 terraces and ridges that bounded the old river come down 
 to, and are cut off by, the present gorge ; at other places 
 they retire back for at least lOO yards from it. They prove 
 that, before the present river was confined in its rocky 
 Korge, it often changed its channel, as rivers do now that 
 run through superficial deposits over a nearly level plain. 
 
 On the Canadian side, a little above the whirlpool, two of 
 these terraces come down to the gorge, and are cut off by it. 
 Their diredtion is shown by dotted lines in the sketch plan 
 of the river gorges at ch*: whirlpool (fig. 3. P- i47). and the 
 following figure is a seaion through them at the line c D, in 
 plan. 
 
 bouldrrs of northern origin; a, river ridge. 
 
 There are here shown two river terraces, of which the 
 highest and oldest has been formed by the washing off by 
 the river of the clay without boulders (d), from that with 
 boulder (c), leaving a level terrace, excepting where it is 
 capped by the river ridge (g). The river at the whirlpool 
 has cut back into the old gorge, clearing out the entrance 
 to it and cutting off this terrace, but on the other side of the 
 old gorge it re-appears and continues on, parallel to the 
 course of the present river, and without any reference to 
 
 * Travels in North America, vol. i., p. 42. 
 
 M 
 
 t 
 
 ^.^g^gg^^^gR,^jagagagg ag»i:i^^ i ^.fe Mii SJMAfete^ ' -— 
 
wz 
 
 iich the 
 » off by 
 lat with 
 ire it is 
 hirlpool 
 jntrance 
 ie of the 
 1 to the 
 rence to 
 
 /arA^A 
 
 ♦fS 
 
 Niagara. 
 
 is 
 
 the old blocked-up channel, across which it had evidently 
 been at one time continuous. 
 
 This terrace must have been formed when the river was 
 much wider than now, and flowing so slowly, that it had 
 only power to cut through the unconsolidated sandy clay, 
 without stones. The lower terrace marks a later stage, 
 when, by the cutting back of the gorge, the river ran with a 
 swifter current, a' a lov -r level, and in a narrower channel, 
 andcutthroughthelowei .Ul to the solid rock below. Itmarka 
 the last stage in the present river's course, before it occupied 
 the gorge cut through the Silurian limestones. 1 he ridge 
 capping the bank of the old river-bed must have been heaped 
 up during floods. It is well exposed, though in danger of 
 total obliteration, as it is being carted aNvay for gravel. The 
 stones in it are all rounded, like true river gravel. Mixed 
 through it, often filling the interstices between the stones, 
 are niultitudes of fresh-water shells belonging to the genera 
 ..hlania, Limnea, Unto, and Cyclas. I was able to confirm 
 the observation of Lyell.that the assemblage of species is the 
 same as that now found in the river above the falls. 
 Amongst the stones of the present beach above Goat Island, 
 I found shells of the same species as I did in the old ridge 
 above the whirlpool, and in not much better state of preser- 
 vation ; indeed, excepting that I had labelled the boxes con- 
 taining the different sets, I could scarcely now tell which 
 were the older of the two. This assemblage of dead shells 
 in the gravel of the beach differs, both in the older and 
 newer deposits, from that found living in the present river, 
 in that many delicate shelled species are scarce, or not 
 found at all, owing, no doubt, to only the more robust shells 
 being preserved. Thus, thin-shelled species of Physa 
 ..bound in the river, but I did not find any of their shells, 
 either amongst the stones of the present or tie old beach. 
 
 A little above the whirlpool, the gorge widens out abruptly, 
 as shown in plan, and the terraces and ridge are cut off by 
 it, so that they cap the gorge, and are exhibited in seftion 
 almost as clearly as I have depifted them in fig. 4. I he 
 river ridge, composed entirely of loose gravel and sand is 
 seen running to the edge of the cliff. The widening of he 
 gorge extends for some distance beyond it, cutting off the 
 upper terrace in the same manner. At this spot the upper 
 layers of limestone projeft beyond the lower beds, just as 
 they do now at the table rock at the falls, forming an over- 
 hanging precipice, so that the widening of the gorge cannot 
 have been caused by weathering. I cannot conceive how 
 the present river could excavate the gorge beyond the loose 
 
 '■MJ Si i JguS^&iVtoTifewiw"-' '■'■^^^^ 
 
i6 
 
 Niagara. 
 
 ridge of gravel, without washing both it and the terrace of 
 unconsolidated till away; and it seems to me that we have 
 here a proof, of what appeared before to be probable, that 
 the river has at this point only re-opened the ancient [^orge, 
 the clay and stones that filled the widened part having been 
 washed out by water from below, not from above, as would 
 be necessary to excavate the gorge itself. I concluded, 
 therefore, that the pre-glacial falls had been situated at least 
 as high up as this point, and I t'.ought that the narrowing 
 of the gorge upwards, though it was still wider than that 
 leading to Queenstown, might mark the commencement of 
 the present river's work above the whirlpool. 
 
 On examining the gorge higher up, I however discovered 
 that there were several places where it widened suddenly 
 out, and at two of these I found similar proofs of the gorge 
 not having been excavated by the present river. Tiius, on 
 the American side, between the railway and the suspension 
 bridge, there are two or more widenings of the gorge, and I 
 noticed a terrace of till at the upper one cut off by the 
 setting back of the gorge. On the Canadian side, about a 
 quarter of a mile below the suspension bridge, there is one 
 of these sudden widenings or bulgings out of the gorge. 
 Higher up a ridge of till, capped by river gravels containing 
 fresh-water shells, marks a former channel of the river, and 
 runs down about 50 yards from the gorge. This ridge does 
 not wind round the widened part of the gorge, but runs 
 down to it, and is abruptly cut off by it, similarly to the one 
 above the whirlpool. Exai^tly the same argument may be 
 used to prove that the present river has not cut out the 
 gorge at this point, but only emptied it of the glacial clays 
 and sands with which the old pre-glacial gorge was choked 
 up. This example of a river ridge cut off by the re-excava- 
 tion of an older gorge, is the nearest to the fall that I could 
 find. From thence, upwards, the river terrace is back from 
 the gorge, and uninterrupted by it. 
 
 The argument resolves itself into this form : above the 
 whirlpool the gorge approaches both in dire(5tion and width 
 nearer to the old one leading to St. David's than to the 
 post-glacial one leading to Queenstown. That it is pre- 
 glacial is strongly indicated by the fa<5l of the post-glacial 
 ridges being cut off by it in consequence of its re-excavation, 
 whilst there has not been a single argument advanced in 
 favour of the theory that it is post-glacial, which was simply 
 founded on an assumption that does not bear investigation. 
 The conclusion at which I arrive is, that the gorge was cut 
 back from the whirlpool up to at least within three-quarters 
 
 ^^&^^^;g^A, ,^i■miJl'!.m.:Mlf^li' 
 
VOL. V. (N.S.) 
 
 vJ i V ii r i w i k i l'ii iri d' l l i T i l : ''i 
 
 0"lT i liti'''j'' i V» » "» iii ' iii I I"' ' " i "i''"'l •'m''''^'''' ' 
 
- 1 ■■■n'l^ 
 
 ■*■*-. ^flM 
 
 ,V'-. ■»■ 
 
 ♦^ K».< 
 
 I^SS" 
 
U^ 'ftli 
 
 Niiigtiy(f- 
 
 X9 
 
 of a mile from the falls before the glacial pcnod. It may 
 have existed to within a few yards of the falls, for anything 
 that can be seen to the contrary, whilst, in favour of such 
 a supposition, there may be advanced the great width of the 
 Eorge up to the commencement of the horse-shoe tall, the 
 very small indentation that the American fall has made in 
 the side of the gorge over which it leaps, and the appearance 
 the plan of the falls presents, that the river is now cuttmg 
 back a much narrower gorge, one as narrow as that leading 
 to Oueenstown from the whirlpool. » . . 
 
 I hoped to have been able to find at Goat Island some 
 evidence bearing on this question, as both Lyell and Hall 
 have described river gravels capping the till there, and also 
 indications of a pre-glacial channel excavated in the si- 
 lurian rocks, but the whole of the island was covered with 
 a classy surface of ice produced by the frozen spray from 
 the cataraa,that made it most difficult to get about the 
 sloping banks, and masked the beds I wished to examine. 
 On the Canadian side there rises a high ridge of Mil, over- 
 lain by a thick bed of boulder clay, with large stones ; and 
 on the American side, there is what appears to be a con- 
 tinuation of this ridge, now cut through by the river. 
 Around this ridge, on the American side, there are indi- 
 cations, as I have already mentioned, that the river once 
 flowed. Goat Island seems to be a remnant of this ridge, 
 and I imagine that it has been pierced, not from above, but 
 from below, that it overlaid the pre-glacial gorge, and was 
 undermined in the same way as the clay filling up the end 
 of the old gorge has been at the whirlpool. This and other 
 questions that arise I must leave to observers with more 
 time at their disposal, and a more favourable season of the 
 year to make their investigations than I enjoyed. ihe 
 observations that I made are the result of three days ho iday 
 from business, and I am sure, from what I saw, that three 
 months close application would not exhaust the many points 
 of interest that present themselves. The geologists of 
 Canada and New York could not have a more interesting 
 . question to work at than this, and if they did no more than 
 correaiy and fully map out the gorge, the terraces, and the 
 river ridges, they would confer a great benefit on geological 
 science. The absence of such maps I found to be a great 
 drawback to my investigations. The only part of the gorge 
 that has been surveyed with minute accuracy is that at the 
 falls. This was done by Professor Hall, assisted oy com- 
 petent engineers, in 1842, and permanent marks were at the 
 Lme time fixed in the rocks. The first step of a new survey 
 
 :S 
 
ST^SS?sr.~^' 
 
 r 
 
 20 
 
 Niagara. 
 
 should be a tngonometrical re-measurement of the rocks 
 at the fall. This, compared with that made thirty-three 
 years ago — one-third of a century — could not fail to afford 
 data for calculating the present rate of retrocession, and 
 would be a fitting compliment to the veteran geologist under 
 whose auspices the first survey was made, and to whom the 
 whole scientific world is a debtor for a lifetime spent in 
 geological resea; ch. • j •. 
 
 Whenever that survey be made, I believe it will decide 
 that the present river is cutting back the gorge much more 
 slowly than Lyell estimated ; that, instead of one foot 
 yearly, the retrocession is not more than, if it is as much, 
 as one foot in ten years, and that, allowing for the compa- 
 rative softness of the rocks below the whirlpool, we shall 
 have to put back the occurrence of the glacial period to at 
 least 200,000 years ago, if we conclude that the whole of the 
 gorge, from the falls to Queenstown, has been excavated 
 since that time. But if the conclusion at which I have 
 arrived is correft, that the gorge, from the whirlpool to the 
 falls is pre-glacial, and that th , present river has only cut 
 through the softer beds between Queenstown and the whirl- 
 pool, and above the latter point merely cleared out the pre- 
 glacial gorge in the harder rocks, — 20,000 years, or even less, 
 i? amply sufficient for the work done, and the occurrence of 
 the glacial epoch, as so measured, will be brought within 
 the shorter period that, from other considerations, I have 
 argued has elapsed since it was at its height. 
 
 Simply looked at from a geological point of view, the time 
 occupied may not seem important, and it has been usual for 
 geologists to ask for an unlimited duration, though, even 
 from that standpoint, it is difficult to reconcile the small 
 amount of denudation that glacial moraines exhibit with the 
 remote antiquity that some physicists assign to them. In 
 Ohio and Illinois, the mounds of the old Indians do not look 
 more recent than the ridges and gravel hills of glacial origin, 
 and in some parts cannot be distinguished from them until 
 excavations are made into them. In England I know we 
 have a school of geologists who have taught that the river 
 valleys of the south of England have been excavated since 
 the glacial period; but wherever we find undoubted g''cial 
 deposits, as in the north of England and in Scotland, we 
 find them scarcely altered from the time when they were 
 laid down. 
 
 Cut the student of the succession of changes in the or- 
 ganic world will have a serious difficulty removed, if it be 
 proved that the glacial period occurred not more than twenty 
 
'.^ '' SS!Jii ip7r' 
 
 Niagara. 
 
 21 
 
 lie rocks 
 rty-three 
 to afford 
 lion, and 
 ist under 
 'hom the 
 spent in 
 
 11 decide 
 ich more 
 one foot 
 as much, 
 e compa- 
 we shall 
 lod to at 
 ole of the 
 !xcavated 
 h I have 
 3ol to the 
 i only cut 
 he whirl- 
 t the pre- 
 even less, 
 irrence of 
 ht within 
 s, I have 
 
 , the time 
 usual for 
 agh, even 
 the small 
 t with the 
 them. In 
 o not look 
 ;ial origin, 
 ;hem until 
 know we 
 t the river 
 ated since 
 Led g'' cial 
 otland, we 
 they were 
 
 in the or- 
 :d, if it be 
 lan twenty 
 
 -KB^", 
 
 *«2<. 
 
 'housand years ago. In the northern temperate zone, so 
 far as we can learn, there has been little variation m the 
 animal or vegetable world since the glacial period. In the 
 tropics, the formation of specific differences has been pro- 
 bably more rapid, but in northern Europe, the species novV 
 living differ but little, if at all, from their pre-glacial an- 
 cestors. Some of the large mammalia have become extmdt, 
 but the fauna and flora are essentially the same as they 
 were before the glacial periods— that is, though some species 
 have died out, we have no proofs of any new ones having 
 come in. There is not a single example of a distinft spe- 
 cies having been formed since that time, though some 
 varietal differences may be detcaed. Even man himself 
 has, I believe, varied but little, physically, since pre-glacial 
 
 In the paper already referred to, published in No. 44 of 
 this journal (Oft., 1873), I assumed that the arguments 
 brought forward by distinguished geologists, to prove that 
 the palajolithic implements and the mammalian remains 
 found with them were post-glacial, were founded on a sound 
 data. There were g>-eat difficulties to be surmounted it 
 that conclusion was correct ; but the published serious of 
 the superficial beds, at Bedford and at Hoxne, seemed to ad- 
 mit of no other explanation. Since then I have been able to 
 examine for myself some of the supposed post-glacial beds, 
 and to devote more time to the study of the whole of the 
 valley gravels in the south of England, at the bottom of which 
 the palaeolithic implements and mammalian remains are found. 
 The conclusion at which I have arrived is, that so far as the 
 British Isles is concerned, palaeolithic man, the mammoth, 
 the woolly rhinoceros, and the hippopotamus are entirely 
 pre-glacial, and that the great and distinft break between 
 the palaeolithic and neolithic deposits in that area was caused 
 by the culmination of the glacial period, when to the north 
 of a line drawn irregularly from Lynn Regis, m Norfolk, 
 through Birmingham westward, nearly the whole country 
 was covered by land-ice, that destroyed the mammalian 
 bones and the palaeolithic implements, excepting where pre- 
 served in fissures and caverns, or in a few spots in the 
 eastern counties, to which the ice did not reach ; and when, 
 to the sc ath of that line, a great lake or sea of fresh water, 
 dammed back by the ice that blocked up the German oceari 
 to the north, and the British Channel to the west, covered 
 the pre-glacial remains beneath a mantle of beach gravels 
 as it rose and fell. 
 
 Dr. Falconer long ago argued that the older cave 
 
2a Niagara. 
 
 mammalia were Pre-glacial ; Mr Tiddiman ha^^^^^^^ 
 
 human bone beneath glacial debris ''',.ltAf^''te^o{ 
 America Professor Whitney has announced the discovery ol 
 a pre"gracial human skull, 'and I hope soon to be able to ay 
 before geologists the evidence I have coUeaed, that I 
 think pfoves^hlt the tools of paleolithic -a-n the British 
 Isles are all of pre-glacial age. Nearly a ethnologists are 
 aereed that the representatives of palaeolithic man are tne 
 SkTmos of the fa'r north, and probably, in glaaalt.^^^^^^ 
 thev 'leld much the same relation as they do now to more 
 cl.%sed communities, living further south ^ J^or«<^°X!a 
 climes, and I have suggested that the ^/Xloniln ru ns o 
 civilisation still exist in the statues and cyclopian ruins ot 
 
 Tf'vTeTa'Vtfgo'back .00.000 years to the glacial Pjiod 
 
 the small amount of change in the oXT«r5ts'southem 
 slow progress of civilisation northwards, from its southern 
 homerarf difficulties not easily surmounted ^y the evoi^t^on 
 ist for he has not unlimited time at his disposal. Ihis 
 world and its inhabitants do show signs of a beginning, and 
 
 he will have to put that beginning ^,f l^,f^^\7°"f/^,Vo^o 
 that physicists and astronomers will all^ JJ^f '/^o°'°°° 
 years scarcely takes us one step ^^ckward in the long sue- 
 cession of changes in the organu: world of ^h^^h we have 
 proofs in the strata of the ear h's surface These difficui 
 ties will be greatly lessened if the period of the glacial 
 Ipocrhas to I put'back only 20 000 yea- ; and so^ar as 
 the excavation of the gorge of Niagara affords a sca^e of 
 measurement, there is no reason to ask for a longer time. 
 
 L^ 
 
 Printed >t the Quarteri-y -Journal of Science Office, 3, Hor.e-Shoe Court. Ludjatf HUI. 
 
1 found a 
 ihire ; in 
 scovery of 
 ible to lay 
 d, that I 
 he British 
 iogists are 
 in are the 
 ;ial times, 
 w to more 
 congenial 
 ' a glacial 
 in ruins of 
 
 i-'sr, 
 
 '^ 
 
 ial period, 
 i, and the 
 s southern 
 evolution- 
 sal. This 
 nning, and 
 d the time 
 
 if 200,000 
 
 ; long suc- 
 :h we have 
 ;sie difficul- 
 the glacial 
 , so far as 
 a scale of 
 ger time. 
 
 t« 
 
 -S 
 
 urt, Ludfate Hill, 
 
 i' t 
 
 msmki^:.-'^-:-^^i>^:'i^'i