Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, June 1899: Volume LV — John Shaqi
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, June 1899: Volume LVVarious
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, June 1899: Volume LV
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Section, drawn to equal vertical and
horizontal scale, showing enlargement of Niagara gorge on the east
side at its mouth at Lewiston: 1, Niagara limestone, 20 to 30 feet; 2,
Niagara shale, 70 feet; 3, Clinton limestone, 20 to 30 feet; 4,
Clinton and Medina shale, 70 feet; 5, Quartzose Medina sandstone, 20
to 30 feet; 6, softer Medina sandstone, 120 feet above water level.]
An important point to be noticed, and which is evident from two of the
reproduced photographs (Figs. 3 and 4), is that the talus has never
reached up so high as to check the disintegration at the mouth of the
gorge of the Niagara shale and limestone which form the upper one
hundred feet of the face, and which exhibit the maximum amount of
enlargement which has taken place. The thickness of the Niagara
limestone is here so small that it has not been so important an
element in forming the talus as it has been farther up the stream,
where it is two or three times as thick. Now, while our original
supposition was that one quarter of an inch annually was eroded from
the upper two hundred feet, this would involve the erosion of a half
inch per annum over the top of the gorge to bring the calculation
within the limit of ten thousand years. It certainly is difficult for
one who examines the facts upon the ground to believe that the
crumbling away of this exposed Niagara shale could have been at any
less rate than that; so that the estimate of about ten thousand years
for the date of that stage of the Glacial period in which Niagara
River first began its work of erosion at Lewiston (an estimate which
is supported by a great variety of facts independent of those relating
to the Niagara gorge) is strongly confirmed by this new line of
evidence.
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