The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 21, 1901, Page 2

” THE SUNDAY CALL. 2 £/ *CSEPH LE CONTE,dead and b wept, honored and his praises sung ‘ by all who knew him, will hold a firm place in the memories of all who-came under the influence of his sterling personality. It person ality, after all,. that made him revered and beloved by students and the compan- fons of his youth and old age. That he was a great scientist no one doubts, but it is not for.that alone that California mourns his loss. He was a man so simple in nature, genial and warm in temperament and so infectiously good that his personality was truly irresistible. The man’s scientific value, which was always of a positive and big quantity, was submerged by this charm, and it was “Prof. Joe,” the man, that was the object cf affection and rev- erence. ' Love for this gray-haired scientist grew to be a cult at Berkeley. Not only the students, but the townspeople, felt his presence, and hc was a mark of esteem, respect and affection for all classes. While sociable and light in spirit, he did not en- tertain or care to entertain, yet he seemed to enjoy all social functions in which he took part. In Berkeley Le-Conte had two very close frienés—John Garber, foremost of Western lawyers, and George Howison, whose philosophy has raised more than one storm in the quiet, peaceful shades of the university town. These three men would come together on many occasicns, and all witlf different views of life, systems of ethics and cosmie philosophy, would talk the oil out of the lamps. Howison never would or could agree with Le Conte's system of ethics. Close and sound in their friendship, they were often at swords' points over matters ~f theoretical philosophy. 4 Tt has been said of Howison that as ch as he loves his friends he will put was his so them on the grill whenever intellects cizsh. And many an Interesting side lec- ture has been delivered fn the rooms at the university by Howison on Le Conte and Le Conte on Howison. ,A favorite cheme of the students was to visit Pro- fessor Le Conte soon after a lecture by Howison and ask for his opinion or views this and that philosophical point educed by the nominated teacher of phil- »sophy at the university. Then “Prof. Joe” would straighten himself up and with characteristic outward gesture and 1 smile that played incessantly upon his “ne old countenance he would launch forth in an explanation or accounting hat proved at least to himself the abso- of his own philosophy. L2 Conte treated his antagonist with the greatest resp and deference, even showing consideration for his theories of ethics. Not so with Howisoh. When the same students would come to him with a bit of Le Conte there was a general dam- ion after a tribute to the man. Of all the good and just things sald of Le Conte, the eulog nd the panegyrics, perhaps none will equal the few words spoken now and then by George Howison in the class- rooms—always previous to a slaughter of Le Conte's ethical theories. Old as Professor Le Conte was, he would never acknowfedge physical weakness. Even to the last regular course of lec- tures delivered at the university he would mount a ladder, tack up his charts and during his lectures he would stand with pointer in hand, ever ready and ac- tive. Once about elght years ago a stu- dent-offered to assist him in the hanging of charts on_ the blackboard. His offer was politely—and a bit grufly—declined. Professor Davidson tells a story about Le Conte’s pride in his own physical vigbr. The two were walking through the col- lege grounds, when Professor Davidson unconsclously lifted his arm to lighten the labor of his friend's steps. Le Conte dis- played his dislike for such assistapce im- mediately by drawing away just far enough to separate himself from his com- panion. Professor Le Conte was an exceedingly temperate man—in thought, manner and @aily action—though by no means an ascetic. He enjoyed life and all things that go with it. Whether in the valleys or the mountains, at the seaside or In the fields, he found much to fasten his mind upon. They were not cold dust or rock or so much water to him. Le Conte was nothing if not imaginative and poetic in everything he has done or said. In the Yosemite he lost sight two hours out of every three of the geological values. The on lute right he (CONTE-PHILQ/OP! p _/z,%a/%z/fi ar JHF LVINV GRIATER THAN, SCUINTIS, natural beauty appealed to him, and some of his descriptions of the valley are most beautiful and genuinely valuable from a literary standpoint. - As a bit of imagination coupled with sclence his students in comparative zool- ogy will remember Le Conte’s description of a glass of champagne. To this sclen- tist the peculiar power and fascination of the gurgling wine was due to the fact that it appealed directly to four senses. The description , went something like this: “The melten amberlike liqifid, with its myriads of crystal bubbles rising from the depths, its deliciou$ flavor holding the tongue in a charm that knows no break- ing, the savor arising to the nostrils and picturing olfactory images as beautiful in their way as anything that appeals to the eye; all these make champagne. It is the nectar, the ambrosla of the sublunar world If champagne meant so much to the old scientist he showed a temperateness that was astounding. He rarely drank more than a single glass of wine at a dinner or even at ,a banquet, and whenever asked to fill his glass again would always reply by saying that he enjoyed the first so much and so satisfactorily that he did not care to clog and sicken his appetite with more. " His partial abstinence from tobacco was equaily well sustained. It is doubtful if many of his friends have ever seen him smoke, yet he indulged on occasions in a short cigarette. When handed a cigar- ette one evening at a banquet he uncon- sciously took it, but realizing in a mo- ment that he did something foreign to his habits laid it down on the table. To a question Le Conte replied: “Oh, yes, I smoke, but only before going Into the lec- ture room, and then I roll myself a cigar- ette. It does me a whole lot of good. ‘Why, I smoke as much as a quarter of a pound of tcbacco every vear.” Banqueting Professor Le Conte was a hobby with his friends. Scientific and lay societies made him the guest of many a special dinner. As an after dinner speaker he ywas always happy in his remarks, never attempting the eloquent. His very individuality precluded bombast or false to rhetoric. When his subject was his lik- ing he fell right into it with a dash and viger that were surprising to his auditors, but he never cared to display any of his talents in after dinner speaking. He pre- ferred to listen, and he was a good istener. Soon after his return from Europe I the fall of 1892 the University Club of th city gave a banquet in his honor and gathered around the club boards n was every man of educational or scientific note in the city at the ti Prot Muir, famous as a geologist and particu- larly as a discoverer of glaciers, was called upon and naturally the cry of gla- clers went up. Professor Muir spoke of glacial action in general and indications of it in the Yosemite Valley. To this Le Conte interpo on. When he was called upon 1a that he would reluctantly admit of Yosem clers, but “after all it was a poor, miserable dwart of a glacier and shouldn’t be taken into account with the big ones with small names.” Le Conte’s work where science and re- ligion cross was what endeared him to the church going people and made him an evolutionist of an odd though strong type. . He belleved in evolution as an un- deniable fact and all his scientific work takes this as a fundamental basis for elaboration. It was doctrinal, sclentifio gospel to him. But-his beliefs in evolu« tion went hand in hand with a stronger pelief, Christiapity. Among his friends he numbered several who stood on a plat- form of agnosticism and even atheism. They. say that Professor- Le Conts's ethical labors rested upon an endless struggle to reconcile Christianity with evolution and they hint at the severity of the task. Like Faraday, the great Eng- lish sclentist, Le Conte was swept with a tidal wave of faith—an overpowering and irresistible faith In the biblical teach- ings as relating to the cardinal principles of Christlanity. The story of Faraday was often repeated by Le Conte—that when he went to church he was over- whelmed with faith. Science then was forgotten® for the time. There is hardly any likelihood that an- other professor will take Le Conte's place in the heart of the student body. They say at the University of California that the classes since his active days showed as great a respect and affection for the old sclentist as those who feit the direct power of his teaching. And Le Conte was not proof against this reverence on the part of students. He Hked appreciation.’ 1 an objecti o speak he It warmed his soul and brought joy to his heart. When on his seventieth birthday the student body decorated his classroom with flowers the tears rolle of the old teacher’s eyes and he responded in a way that brought gulps to the throats of some of the students. After that the ration of Le Cc e's n niversaries became a custom out room an- One of “Professor Joe's eminent on this was George Davidson, coast as the head of the Coast Surve: Professor Davidson tells this story: was no ungommon mat for Joe to drop into my office about 3 o’clock In the after- noon and find me busy at work." He would express astonishment at the fact that I was so, persistent and steady at the desk I in turn wot k him how he m aged to his dafl work so easily. Then, in his inimitable way, he would use a philosophy of the economy of labor and prove to both of us that the best work s accomplished, not by constant devotion, but a wise discretion and a husbanding finisk of pt stren It was this same George Davidson that was called upon to welcome “Joe” Le Conte upon his return from abroad. The whole tone of his speech sounded the per- sonality of the.man and take care of itself. So it always was with those who had the pleasure of intercourse with Professor Le Conte. They forgot the work of the man and felt only the in- fluence of a pe: ty that will last as long as memory e left sclence to —fe Pre Niagara EFPRE Niagara Falls, which are now cutting their way backward along the bed of the river to Lake Erie at the rate of about fouf feet a year, reach the head of Grand Island less than five miles away, there will be no Niagara. The whole system of the great lakes is changing. The waters of Lake Michigan at Chicago are slowly rising and Lake Erie is growing shallow., * Eventually, unless a dam is built to pre- vent it, as has been proposed, Lake Michi- gan will overflow to the Illinois River, as it did centuries ago in the last preglacial period; the basin of Lake Erfe will be tributary to Lake Huron, the current will be reversed in the Detroit and the St. Clair channels, and the whole lake system will drain southward into the Mississippl. Then Niagara will vanish, From a ma- jestic cataract the falls will dwindle to a few threads of water falling over a precipice, as may be seen in the summer season in the upper falls of the Genesee at Rochester. All that they will carky will be the drainage of the immediate neigh- berhocd. There isn't any occasion for alarm for the present, however, for all this will take place in from 2000 to 3000 years from now, and many things may happen before then. Also, as it is extremely unlikely that the elixir of life will be discovered in this gen- eration, nobody now alive need worry much about it. But that is what the great lake system is fending to, as is set forth in an interesting ‘‘Guide to the Ge- ology and Paleontology of Niagara Falls and Viclnity,” by Professor Amadeus W. Grabau, 8. D., of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, arranged and published in most complete form by John M. Clarke, the State paleontologist, as-a bulletin of the New York State Museum. The book, which is handsomely illus- trated with photographic plates, has been prepared, so Mr. Clarke says in & brief preface, with the especal purpose of af- fording to visitors to Buffalo during the season of the Pan-American Exposition a guide in thelir tours through this region, renowned for its scenic features and class- ic in its geology. The ground has been the subject of a multitude of scientific treat- ises, but in no single place before has their general purport been brought . together, and Mr. Clarke thinks that they cannot fail to prove serviceable to a large ele- ment of the public. It will be from 500 to 600 vears before the tendency of the lakes to a new drainage bed 1s plainly manifested, according to the authorities cited by Professdr Grabau. "The rising of the waters of Lake Michigan at present is at the rate'of mine or ten inches a century. The first water to over- flow will be that at some high stage of Falls to Become a Thipg of the Past? the lake and the discharge may at first be intermittent. Fer a mean lake stage such a discharge will begin in about 100) years, but after 1500 years ghere wili be no interruption. In abaut 2000 years the Illinois River and the Niagara will carry equal.shares of the surplus water of the great lakes, and in 500 years for certain' there will be no Niagara. That is if man, in the shape of the United States Government, does not inter- fere. The shoaling of Lake Erie at Cleve- land and at other points on the Ohio shore has already given cause for alarm, and the stoppage of this natural movement in the general drainage system of the lakes, which is attributed to the gradual tilting of the land in the northwest, has been se- riously considered. The plan proposed to stop the tendency is to erect an immense dam in the Niag- ara River above Buffalo, with the object of checking and eventually decreasing the outflow. It is argued that this wouid not greatly decrease the power of Niagara, now valuable, but there are authoritles who contend that this argument is absurd and the plan is opposed on that account. This tilting of the territory in the Northwest is a curious phenomenon, for which the geologists cannot wholly ac- count. It is plainly recorded in the beaches of the old glacial lakes, which had a uniform elevation while forming, but now are no ionger of a uniform height above the sea level, rising progressively toward the northeast. The movement is still going on. Professor G. K. Gilbert has made an ex- tended study of the problem, and he has been led to the assumption that the whole lake region is being lifted on one side or . depressed on the other, so that its plane is. bodily canted toward the south-south- west. The rate of change, he estimates, is such that the two ends of a line 100 miles long and lying in a south-southwest direction, are relatively displaced to the extent of four-tenths of a foot in a cen- tury. From this it follows that the waters of each lake are gradually rising on the southern and western shores or falling on the northern and eastern shores, or both. Niagara Falls came into existence when the waters of Lake Iroquois, which in ages long past was the predecessor of Lake Ontario, fell beneath the level of the escarpment at Lewiston. At first the falls were only a small cataract, but year by year as the lake subsided the cataract gained in height and consequently in force of fall, as well as efficiency in cutting its channel. The Niagara gorge from Lewis- ton to the present falls is believed to be wholly the product of river erosion. Before the advent of the falls the NI agara was a placid stream from lake to lake much as it is to-day from Buffalo to the northern end of Grand Island. cut shallow banks into the glacial till and their traces are seen now -in some places a mile back from the edge of the gorge which the falls have since cut. It has been patiently cutting that gorge for ghousands of years, how many the geologists cannot tell, but they place the total at not less than 10,000 or more than 50,000. One geologist, Professor Hitchcock, puts the beginning . of the great cataragy of 1025 B. C., which is 30 vears before the time of Romulus. or about the period in which g David reigned in Jerusalem. As long as a river narrow and vig- orously undercuts its banks the latter will be steep and the river channel will have the character of a gorge. This continues as long as the river is cutting downward, that is, till the grade or the®river bot tem is a very gentle one. Then the spreading of the current underc the banks, and atmospheric = degradation quickly destroys the cliffs, which the river does not keep perpendicular. 8- ara gorge changes greatly even in a cen- tur; Before the falls the river flows in a channel in places only ten feet wide and 100 feet below the level of the platform, which was its bed a century ago. There is a theory that only a part, the southern or latter part of the gorge of the whirlpool rapids, was carved by .the Niagara, the volume of which was at one time reduced by the buried St. David's gorge, since swent away in a glacial pe- riod, and that the greatest half of the gorge was preglacial. All the authorities agree, however, that the broad and deep gorge from Clifton to the present falls was made by a cataract carrying the full supply of water. This, which geologists say is the most readily interpreted part of the gorge, has now come.to an end at the present falls, and the.character of the channel hereafter can only .be con- Jjectured. > Niagara, it seems, is now at a eritical stage. The river has reached the second of the points where a rectangular turn is made, and the gorge behind the falls is changing. A shert canal, considerabl narrower than that of the last section, being cut by the Horseshoe fall, and that fall itself %4 narrowing. This narrowness of the channel is due to the concentration of water in the center of the stream. Goat Island, which divides the Horse- shoe from the American fall, and the other islands as well, owes its existence to this concentration of the water, for at one time all of these jslands were sub- merged Py the current. The channel above the Horseshoe fall has been cut to It, more than fifty feet below the summit of Goat Island at the falls, while the upper “end of the island is still at the level of the w r. The effect will be h an island in time will that t as on one si¢ f the main mass of water which, rush passes it and strikes the anadian bank, from which it is deflected toward the center of the catarac that deepened and we may be observe the Canadi where 1 1 many cases n b: 1 and other rom the current period, when allast Victoria carved glacial 1 nounced ec the park « ably in ve culated by set forth Horseshoe per end o having a ave receded will draw can Falls, and all be joined by a dry « event which, was anticipated ¢ hen owing to an ara Rivers the merican r for a e sam the history have been di- of Ni hat sar vided s were at Fosters F telow their ore ed that a narrow island, co Goat Isl- and, in the bed cu lls in two, The founda s of the island, which has since eru away, are to be seen in e ridge which divides the old dry chan- 1 on the left from bed of the American fall was in this of tk ™ and as it car- nel it receded more rapidi n fall reached the hea the 4 had * fus it passed fall feli ot of the r3 history is only repe: itself now agara. S g The h siecal geography, s kS T + geology and paleo of the Niagara regiin are dealt wit] detail in the new book of th t eum. Iy con- tains many plates, a large colored map and possibly more of interesting sc:ei data of the region than has. ever posiic been brought together.—New York Sun.