The Falls of Niagara and Other Famous Cataracts

by George W. Holley

There can be no doubt that at a comparatively recent geological period the Falls of Niagara had no existence. It may suffice to mention two facts which are conclusive on this point. Dr. Houghton, geologist of the State of Michigan, stated in his report that the elevation of Lake Michigan above tide-water is five hundred and seventy-eight feet. That of Lake Erie, as shown by the surveys of the Erie Canal, is five hundred and sixty-eight feet, the difference of level between the two being ten feet. The fall or descent in the Niagara River from Lake Erie to Gill Creek, a few rods above the site of old Fort Schlosser, is twenty feet. Hence we learn that the surface of the water in Lake Michigan is thirty feet higher than that of the Niagara River near the mouth of Gill Creek. If, therefore, we find anywhere below the Falls a barrier drawn across this river that is more than thirty feet high, its water would thereby be set back to Lake Michigan. A moderate elevation above this thirty feet would serve as a safe shore-line for still water.

The existence of this barrier has been demonstrated. In the year 1835, by direction of the War Department, Captain W. G. Williams, of the United States Topographical Engineers, surveyed three routes for a canal around Niagara Falls. The first of these routes was run from the river nearly in a straight line to the head of Bloody Run, and thence a portion of the way over the terrace laid bare by the rapid subsidence of the water after the barrier had been broken through. The second route, commencing at the same point with the first,—the old Schlosser Storehouse, just above Gill Creek,—was run up the valley of the creek, through the ridge above Lewiston, at a slight depression in the general line of the hill, and thence to Lake Ontario by two different routes. The highest point in the ridge was found to be sixty feet above the surface of the water in the river at the starting point. Here, then, is found the requisite barrier—a dam thirty feet higher than the water in Lake Michigan, and having a base, as will be seen by reference to the map, of two and a half miles in breadth. This was its breadth at the time of the survey. But a careful observance of the topography of the banks on both sides of the river will show that it must have been originally not less than twice that breadth, and that the depressions now existing are the results of the denudation caused by the removal of the barrier.

While this barrier was unbroken, Lake Erie as extended would have covered all land that was not twenty-six feet higher than the present level of the river at old Schlosser landing, since the water there is sixteen feet below the level of Lake Erie. It is not difficult to trace this barrier on a good map. From old Fort Grey it stretches eastward a short distance past Batavia, and thence turns to the south through Wyoming into Cattaraugus County. In the latter county it forms the summit level of the Genesee Valley Canal. This summit is a swamp sixteen hundred and twenty-three feet above tide water, and the water runs from it northerly through the Genesee River into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and southerly, through the Alleghany, into the Gulf of Mexico, while within a short distance rises Cattaraugus Creek which flows west into Lake Erie.

The gradual rise of the Niagara barrier as it extends to the east was demonstrated by the surveys of Captain Williams. By the Gill Creek line to Lewiston he found its elevation above the river, as has been stated, to be sixty feet. By the Cayuga Creek line to Pekin it was sixty-four feet, and by the Tonawanda Creek line to Lockport it was eighty-four feet, as is also shown by the surveys of the Erie Canal.

To the west the barrier extends from Brock's Monument to the ridge which bounds the westerly side of the valley of the Chippewa Creek, and thence around the head of Lake Ontario into the Simcoe Hills.

At that period all the islands in the Niagara River valley were submerged. The lower sections of the valleys of the Chippewa, Cayuga, Tonawanda, and Buffalo creeks were also submerged. The site of Buffalo was, probably, a small island, and many other similar islands were scattered over the broad expanse of water.

And this brings us to our second cardinal fact. Lake Michigan, having absorbed or spread over all the vast water-links in the great chain between Superior and Ontario, was the most stupendous body of fresh water on the globe. Its drainage was to the south, through the valleys of the Des Plaines, Kankakee, Illinois, and Mississippi rivers, into the Gulf of Mexico. The evidence of this fact is abundant. The survey of the Illinois Central Railroad shows that the surface of Lake Michigan is three hundred feet above the line of low water in the Ohio River at Cairo, where it joins the Mississippi. It also shows that the low-water line of the Kankakee, where the railroad crosses it, is eleven feet above the surface of the lake. This river, which forms the north-eastern branch of the Illinois, rises in the State of Indiana, near South Bend, two miles from the St. Joseph. From its very commencement at its head-springs it is a shallow channel in the middle of a swamp,—called on the maps the "Kankakee Pond,"—nearly a hundred miles long, and from two to five miles wide. On its north side, in Porter County, is a broad cove, with a small stream in the midst of it, which reaches up due north to within a stone's-throw of the south branch of the East Calumick River, which empties into the south-west corner of Lake Michigan.

More than thirty years ago, while traveling by stage from Logansport, Indiana, to Chicago, the writer was told by a fellow-passenger that it was not an unusual thing, on the occurrence of a strong north wind during the spring floods, to cross with boats from this branch of the East Calumick into the Kankakee Pond through this cove. We have not been able to obtain any authentic topographical survey which shows the elevation that must be overcome in order to effect this meeting of the waters.

Again: The river Des Plaines rises near the northern line of the State of Illinois, and running south parallel with the lake shore, at its junction with the Kankakee forms the Illinois. The Des Plaines is only ten miles west of Chicago. One of its eastern tributaries rises very near the head-waters of the south branch of the Chicago River, and often, when flooded by heavy rains, its waters flow over into the lake. At this point, also, the Jesuits and the early settlers were in the habit of crossing in their boats to the Des Plaines, and thence into the Illinois. The writer was informed by Colonel William A. Bird, the last Surveyor-in-Chief of the Boundary Commission, that when the party was at Mackinaw, in the spring of 1820, Mr. Ramsey Crooks, the adventurous and enterprising agent of John Jacob Astor, came up to that place from Joliet on the Illinois in one of the big canoes so generally used at that day for navigating the lakes, and that Mr. Crooks informed them that he crossed from the Des Plaines into Lake Michigan without taking his canoe out of the water. The deep cut in the Illinois and Michigan Canal, recently excavated by the city of Chicago in order to improve its sewer drainage, is quite uniform at its upper surface, and is sixteen to eighteen feet deep for a distance of twenty-six miles. The bottom of this cut is six feet below the lowest water-mark ever noted in the lake. At the point where the deep cut reaches the Des Plaines, it is ten feet lower than the bottom of the river. It is sixteen miles further down before the bottom of the cut and the river coincide with each other. Nearly the whole of this distance it is necessary to maintain a guard-bank, to protect the canal from the inundations of the river. Here we find there is a dam, only about twelve feet high, that once separated the waters of the lake from those of the Gulf of Mexico.