The Niagara River has been cutting its way across the shelf of rock between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie for about 20,000 years. Does it seem a long time?No, not as compared to the 500 million year-old rocks of Niagara Escarpment. If we look back a million years ago, much of North America was covered with ice. The glaciers advanced and receded several timesas the earth's climate changed. Finally they disappeared, leaving behind a depression by the great weight of ice filled with water and became the forerunner of our present Great Lakes.

This fresh-water water body found many outlets to the Atlantic Ocean. One of the outlets spilled over the Niagara Escarpment at present-day Queenston and thus, Niagara Falls were born.When the Niagara River began cascading over the 250 foot-high Escarpment, the pounding water quickly wore away the soft shale under the upper layer of limestone. As more shale washed away the limestone layer became increasingly unstable until finally it broke off. The Niagara River had taken its first bite into the Escarpment.The cycle was repeated again and again over the next several thousand years. The Falls crept gradually upstream.

At the site of present-day Whirlpool, after 3 1/2 miles of excavating, the river broke into an old, filled-in gorge cut by another river thousands of years before. The Falls disappeared and a along series of rapids gradually washed away the glacially deposited full until the old gorge was re-excavated. The Falls as we see them today then reappeared and the process of cutting back into the rock started once again.

During the last 200 years the Falls have been moving steadily upstream. the Horshoe Falls has receded 865 feet since 1764. If this rate of recession were to continue, the American Falls would dry-up in another century or so a the more rapidly moving Horshoe captured all teh water of the Niagara River.

Man, however has changed the picture. Remedial works and dams have spread the flow of water more evenly over the two falls. Power stations take up to 75 % of the water. Recession is now less than one foot per year. It seems likely that these man-made changed, together with other projects to stabilize the American Falls, will maintain the present appearnce for many years to come.

Men have been in Niagara area since the dosappearance of the great glaciers. We know little of the earliest inhabitants. the were few in number and hunted the mammoth and other pre-historic animals with stone-tipped, long-pointed spears. The first Europeans to visit Niagara were missionaries and fur traders. They found a corn-eating tribe of Indians in possession and christened them the Neutrals because of their position between the warring Huron and Iroquois nations. In 1649 the Neutrals were wiped out by the warlike Iroquois. Niagara became the territory of the Senecas, one of the tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy.

For over 100 years the Niagara River was an inportant link in the fur trade route to the Upper Lakes. The first settlement did not take place, however, until the arrival of Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution. These settlers were the first to harness the river to provide power for saw and grist mills.

Industrial developments followed rapidly. By 1880 the shore of the Niagara River on the New York side was crowded with dozens of manufacturing enterprises that relied on the water of the Niagara River for power. In 1896 the first a.c. power generated at Niagara Falls was transmitted to Buffalo. Larger hydro-electric generating stations followed in quick succession. Today, the huge plants near Queenston and Lewiston with a combined capacity of over five million horsepower from the largest generating complex in the world. The availability of cheap power brought many electro-chemical companies to Niagara and accounts for the heavily industrialised nature of the area that many visitors find surprising.