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We live near Niagara Falls — one of the must see sights in the world. Whenever we pick up guests from Toronto airport, one of them usually asks, ‘Don’t you live near Niagara Falls?’ My wife and I know all too well what the next question will be! We have seen the Falls so many times with guests, that we feel we know them intimately.
Aside from the beauty and grandeur of the Falls, very few of the millions of visitors realise that they are looking at one of the major excuses for abandoning biblical chronology.
In the mid-1800s the views of a lawyer-turned-geologist, Charles Lyell, influenced the scientific community to accept the idea that the earth had been shaped by ‘slow and gradual’ processes over countless millions of years. Let’s see how Lyell used the Niagara Gorge to undermine the chronology of the Bible.
What Lyell saw
In 1841, the Falls were much harder to reach than they are today. Late that year, Lyell visited the area and did his research to determine the approximate age of the gorge that was excavated by the Niagara River. No one disputes what Lyell saw; you can go there today and see essentially the same thing.
He noted that the gorge cut through an elevated tableland and extended about 11 kilometres (seven miles or 35, 000 feet) from the Falls down to Queenston. He observed that the walls of the gorge, 60–90 metres (200–300 feet) high, were basically composed of two layers: limestone on top, and shale beneath. He reasoned that the water and spray had scoured away the soft shale, leaving the overhanging ledge of hard limestone, which helped protect the shale from the full force of the falling water.
Lyell was told that large chunks of limestone would regularly break off and fall into the gorge. He could see how cracks in the limestone would fill with water. As the water froze in winter it expanded, weakening the limestone, and causing spectacular sights when large chunks broke loose, crashing into the gorge.
newed rapid erosion.
Lyell also discovered that in 1829, a long-time resident told a Mr Blackwell, the son of an eminent geologist, that the Falls had receded about 45 metres (150 feet) during the 40 years he had lived there — more than one metre (three feet) a year.,
Reading the headlines — not the report
Charles Lyell
When Lyell returned to England, he reported that he had scientifically determined that the Niagara Gorge was 35, 000 years old, much older than the Bible allowed. Few people actually read the report that he published in a revised edition of his book, Principles of Geology. Even fewer had any knowledge of Niagara Falls in those days — fewer still had seen it. Since Lyell was a respected English gentleman, most people blindly accepted his estimate. They readily understood how water erodes rock, and this made Lyell’s report all the more believable.
