1.
State park
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State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use state as a political subdivision. State parks are established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural beauty, historic interest. There are state parks under the administration of the government of each U. S. state, some of the Mexican states, the term is also used in the Australian state of Victoria. The equivalent term used in Canada, Argentina, South Africa, similar systems of local government maintained parks exist in other countries, but the terminology varies. State parks are thus similar to parks, but under state rather than federal administration. Similarly, local government entities below state level may maintain parks, in general, state parks are smaller than national parks, with a few exceptions such as the Adirondack Park in New York and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in California. As of 2014, there were 10,234 state park units in the United States, there are some 739 million annual visits to the countrys state parks. The NASPD further counts over 43,000 miles of trail,217,367 campsites, many states include designations beyond state park in their state parks systems. Other designations might be state recreation areas, state beaches, some state park systems include long-distance trails and historic sites. The title of oldest state park in the United States is claimed by Niagara Falls State Park in New York, however several public parks previously or currently maintained at the state level pre-date it. Indian Springs State Park has been operated continuously by the state of Georgia as a park since 1825. In 1864 Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove were ceded by the government to California until Yosemite National Park was proclaimed in 1890. In 1878 Wisconsin set aside a vast swath of its forests as The State Park but, needing money. The first state park with the designation of state park was Mackinac Island State Park in 1895, list of U. S. state parks National Association of State Park Directors Wilderness preservation systems in the United States Ahlgren, Carol. The Civilian Conservation Corps and Wisconsin State Park Development, the State Park Movement in America, A Critical Review excerpt and text search Larson, Zeb. Silver Falls State Park and the Early Environmental Movement, oregon Historical Quarterly 112#1 pp, 34-57 in JSTOR Newton, Norman T. When Forests Trumped Parks, The Maryland Experience, 1906-1950, Maryland Historical Magazine 101#2 pp, 203-224
2.
Tompkins County, New York
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Tompkins County is a county located in the U. S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 101,564, the name is in honor of Daniel D. Tompkins, who served as Governor of New York and Vice President of the United States. Tompkins County comprises the Ithaca, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area and it is home to Cornell University, Ithaca College and Tompkins Cortland Community College. When counties were established in the British Province of New York in 1683 and this was an enormous county, including the northern part of New York State as well as all of the present State of Vermont and, in theory, extending westward to the Pacific Ocean. This county was reduced in size on July 3,1766 by the creation of Cumberland County, on March 12,1772, what was left of Albany County was split into three parts, one remaining under the name Albany County. One of the pieces, Tryon County, contained the western portion. The area then designated as Tryon County now includes 37 counties of New York State, the county was named for William Tryon, colonial governor of New York. In the years prior to 1776, most of the Loyalists in Tryon County fled to Canada, in 1789, Montgomery County was reduced in size by the splitting off of Ontario County. Herkimer County was one of three counties split off from Montgomery County in 1791, Onondaga County was formed in 1794 by the splitting of Herkimer County. Cayuga County was formed in 1799 by the splitting of Onondaga County and this county was, however, much larger than the present Cayuga County. It then included the present Seneca and Tompkins counties, in 1804, Seneca County was formed by the splitting of Cayuga County. On April 7,1817, Tompkins County was created by combining portions of Seneca, the county was named after then Vice-President and former New York Governor Daniel Tompkins. Tompkins almost certainly never visited the county named for him, in 1854, the county lost the town of Hector and the west line of lots in Newfield to the newly formed Schuyler County, New York. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 492 square miles. Tompkins County is in the west central part of New York State, south of Syracuse and it is usually geographically grouped with the Finger Lakes region, but some locals consider themselves to be part of Central New York or the Southern Tier. As of the census of 2000, there were 96,501 people,36,420 households, the population density was 203 people per square mile. There were 38,625 housing units at a density of 81 per square mile. The racial makeup of the county was 85. 50% White,3. 64% African American,0. 28% Native American,7. 19% Asian,0. 04% Pacific Islander,1. 09% from other races, and 2. 26% from two or more races
3.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
4.
Ithaca, New York
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Ithaca /ˈɪθəkə/ is a city in the Southern Tier-Finger Lakes region of New York. It is the seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca-Tompkins County metropolitan area and this area contains the municipalities of the Town of Ithaca, the village of Cayuga Heights, and other towns and villages in Tompkins County. The city of Ithaca is located on the shore of Cayuga Lake. It is named for the Greek island of Ithaca, Ithaca is home to Cornell University, an Ivy League school of over 20,000 students, most of whom study at its local campus. Ithaca College is located just south of the city in the Town of Ithaca, nearby is Tompkins Cortland Community College. These three colleges bring tens of thousands of students who increase Ithacas seasonal population during the school year, some students settle in the area after graduation. The citys voters are more liberal than those in the remainder of Tompkins County or in upstate New York. In 2010, the population was 30,014. Namgyal Monastery in Ithaca is the North American seat of Tenzin Gyatso, indigenous people occupied this area for thousands of years. At the time of European contact, this area was controlled by the Cayuga Indians, jesuit missionaries from New France are said to have had a mission to the Cayuga as early as 1657. Saponi and Tutelo Indians, Algonquian-speaking tribes, later occupied lands at the end of Cayuga Lake. Remnants of these tribes had been forced from North Carolina by tribal conflicts, during the Revolutionary War, four of the then six Iroquois nations were allied with the British, although bands made decisions on fighting in a highly decentralized way. Conflict with the colonists was fierce throughout the Mohawk Valley. In retaliation for conflicts to the east, the 1779 Sullivan Expedition was conducted against the Iroquois peoples in the west of the state, destroying more than 40 villages and stored winter crops. It destroyed the Tutelo village of Coregonal, located near what is now the junction of state routes 13, most Iroquois were forced from the state after the Revolutionary War, but some remnants remained. The state sold off the former Iroquois lands to development and settlement by European Americans. Within the current boundaries of the City of Ithaca, Native Americans maintained only a temporary hunting camp at the base of Cascadilla Gorge, in 1788 eleven men from Kingston, New York came to the area with two Delaware people guides, to explore what they considered wilderness. The following year Jacob Yaple, Isaac Dumond, and Peter Hinepaw returned with their families and that same year Abraham Bloodgood of Albany obtained a patent from the state for 1400 acres, which included all of the present downtown west of Tioga Street
5.
Waterfall
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A waterfall is a place where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of drops in the course of a stream or river. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of an iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls are commonly formed in the course of a river. At these times the channel is narrow and deep. When the river courses over resistant bedrock, erosion happens slowly, as the watercourse increases its velocity at the edge of the waterfall, it plucks material from the riverbed. Whirlpools created in the turbulence as well as sand and stones carried by the increase the erosion capacity. This causes the waterfall to carve deeper into the bed and to recede upstream, often over time, the waterfall will recede back to form a canyon or gorge downstream as it recedes upstream, and it will carve deeper into the ridge above it. The rate of retreat for a waterfall can be as high as one, eventually, the outcropping, more resistant cap rock will collapse under pressure to add blocks of rock to the base of the waterfall. Waterfalls normally form in an area due to erosion. After a long period of being formed, the water falling off the ledge will retreat. Eventually, as the pit grows deeper, the waterfall collapses to be replaced by a steeply sloping stretch of river bed, a river sometimes flows over a large step in the rocks that may have been formed by a fault line. Waterfalls can occur along the edge of a trough, where a stream or river flowing into a glacier continues to flow into a valley after the glacier has receded or melted. The large waterfalls in Yosemite Valley are examples of this phenomenon, another reason hanging valleys may form is where two rivers join and one is flowing faster than the other. Waterfalls can be grouped into ten classes based on the average volume of water present on the fall using a logarithmic scale. Class 10 waterfalls include Niagara Falls, Paulo Afonso Falls and Khone Falls, young Wrote Waterfalls, form and process this work made waterfalls a much more serious topic for research for modern Geoscientists. Ledge waterfall, Water descends vertically over a cliff, maintaining partial contact with the bedrock. Block/Sheet. Classical, Ledge waterfalls where fall height is equal to stream width. Curtain, Ledge waterfalls which descend over a larger than the width of falling water stream
6.
Rocky Mountains
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The Rocky Mountains, commonly known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than 3,000 miles from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the Southwestern United States. Within the North American Cordillera, the Rockies are somewhat distinct from the Pacific Coast Ranges, the Rocky Mountains were initially formed from 80 million to 55 million years ago during the Laramide orogeny, in which a number of plates began to slide underneath the North American plate. The angle of subduction was shallow, resulting in a belt of mountains running down western North America. Since then, further tectonic activity and erosion by glaciers have sculpted the Rockies into dramatic peaks, at the end of the last ice age, humans started to inhabit the mountain range. The first mention of their present name by a European was in the journal of Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre in 1752, the Rocky Mountains are commonly defined as stretching from the Liard River in British Columbia south to the Rio Grande in New Mexico. The United States definition of the Rockies includes the Cabinet and Salish Mountains of Idaho and their counterparts north of the Kootenai River, the Columbia Mountains, are considered a separate system in Canada, lying to the west of the huge Rocky Mountain Trench. This runs the length of British Columbia from its beginnings in the middle Flathead River valley in western Montana to the bank of the Liard River. The Rockies vary in width from 70 to 300 miles, also west of the Rocky Mountain Trench, farther north and facing the Muskwa Range across the trench, are the Stikine Ranges and Omineca Mountains of the Interior Mountains system of British Columbia. A small area east of Prince George, British Columbia on the side of the Trench. In Canada geographers define three main groups of ranges, the Continental Ranges, Hart Ranges and Muskwa Ranges, the Muskwa and Hart Ranges together comprise what is known as the Northern Rockies. The western edge of the Rockies includes ranges such as the Wasatch near Salt Lake City, the Great Basin and Columbia River Plateau separate these sub-ranges from distinct ranges further to the west, most prominent among which are the Sierra Nevada, Cascade Range and Coast Mountains. The Rocky Mountain System within the United States is a United States physiographic region, the Rocky Mountains are notable for containing the highest peaks in central North America. The ranges highest peak is Mount Elbert located in Colorado at 14,440 feet above sea level, Mount Robson in British Columbia, at 12,972 feet, is the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies. The Continental Divide of the Americas is located in the Rocky Mountains, triple Divide Peak in Glacier National Park is so named because water that falls on the mountain reaches not only the Atlantic and Pacific, but Hudson Bay as well. Farther north in Alberta, the Athabasca and other rivers feed the basin of the Mackenzie River, see Rivers of the Rocky Mountains for a list of rivers. Human population is not very dense in the Rocky Mountains, with an average of four people per square kilometer, however, the human population grew rapidly in the Rocky Mountain states between 1950 and 1990. The 40-year statewide increases in range from 35% in Montana to about 150% in Utah
7.
American Revolutionary War
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From about 1765 the American Revolution had led to increasing philosophical and political differences between Great Britain and its American colonies. The war represented a culmination of these differences in armed conflict between Patriots and the authority which they increasingly resisted. This resistance became particularly widespread in the New England Colonies, especially in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. On December 16,1773, Massachusetts members of the Patriot group Sons of Liberty destroyed a shipment of tea in Boston Harbor in an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. Named the Coercive Acts by Parliament, these became known as the Intolerable Acts in America. The Massachusetts colonists responded with the Suffolk Resolves, establishing a government that removed control of the province from the Crown outside of Boston. Twelve colonies formed a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance, and established committees, British attempts to seize the munitions of Massachusetts colonists in April 1775 led to the first open combat between Crown forces and Massachusetts militia, the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Militia forces proceeded to besiege the British forces in Boston, forcing them to evacuate the city in March 1776, the Continental Congress appointed George Washington to take command of the militia. Concurrent to the Boston campaign, an American attempt to invade Quebec, on July 2,1776, the Continental Congress formally voted for independence, issuing its Declaration on July 4. Sir William Howe began a British counterattack, focussing on recapturing New York City, Howe outmaneuvered and defeated Washington, leaving American confidence at a low ebb. Washington captured a Hessian force at Trenton and drove the British out of New Jersey, in 1777 the British sent a new army under John Burgoyne to move south from Canada and to isolate the New England colonies. However, instead of assisting Burgoyne, Howe took his army on a campaign against the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia. Burgoyne outran his supplies, was surrounded and surrendered at Saratoga in October 1777, the British defeat in the Saratoga Campaign had drastic consequences. Giving up on the North, the British decided to salvage their former colonies in the South, British forces under Lieutenant-General Charles Cornwallis seized Georgia and South Carolina, capturing an American army at Charleston, South Carolina. British strategy depended upon an uprising of large numbers of armed Loyalists, in 1779 Spain joined the war as an ally of France under the Pacte de Famille, intending to capture Gibraltar and British colonies in the Caribbean. Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic in December 1780, in 1781, after the British and their allies had suffered two decisive defeats at Kings Mountain and Cowpens, Cornwallis retreated to Virginia, intending on evacuation. A decisive French naval victory in September deprived the British of an escape route, a joint Franco-American army led by Count Rochambeau and Washington, laid siege to the British forces at Yorktown. With no sign of relief and the situation untenable, Cornwallis surrendered in October 1781, Whigs in Britain had long opposed the pro-war Tory majority in Parliament, but the defeat at Yorktown gave the Whigs the upper hand
8.
Works Progress Administration
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In a much smaller but more famous project, Federal Project Number One, the WPA employed musicians, artists, writers, actors and directors in large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects. Almost every community in the United States had a new park, the WPAs initial appropriation in 1935 was for $4.9 billion. Headed by Harry Hopkins, the WPA provided jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression in the United States. At its peak in 1938, it provided jobs for three million unemployed men and women, as well as youth in a separate division, the National Youth Administration. Between 1935 and 1943, when the agency was disbanded, the WPA employed 8.5 million people, most people who needed a job were eligible for employment in some capacity. Hourly wages were set to the prevailing wages in each area. The stated goal of building programs was to end the depression or, at least, alleviate its worst effects. Millions of people needed subsistence incomes, Work relief was preferred over public assistance because it maintained self-respect, reinforced the work ethic, and kept skills sharp. The WPA was a program that operated its own projects in cooperation with state and local governments. Usually the local sponsor provided land and often trucks and supplies, WPA sometimes took over state and local relief programs that had originated in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation or Federal Emergency Relief Administration programs. It was liquidated on June 30,1943, as a result of low unemployment due to the shortage of World War II. The WPA had provided millions of Americans with jobs for eight years, on May 6,1935, FDR issued Executive Order 7034, establishing the Works Progress Administration. The WPA superseded the work of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, direct relief assistance was permanently replaced by a national work relief program—a major public works program directed by the WPA. The WPA was largely shaped by Harry Hopkins, supervisor of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, both Roosevelt and Hopkins believed that the route to economic recovery and the lessened importance of the dole would be in employment programs such as the WPA. The Division of Professional and Service Projects, which was responsible for projects including education programs, recreation programs. It was later named the Division of Community Service Programs and the Service Division, the Division of Investigation, which succeeded a comparable division at FERA and investigated fraud, misappropriation of funds and disloyalty. The Division of Statistics, also known as the Division of Social Research, the Project Control Division, which processed project applications. Other divisions including the Employment, Management, Safety, Supply, the goal of the WPA was to employ most of the unemployed people on relief until the economy recovered
9.
Lenape
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The Leni Lenape or Lenape, or the Delaware people in older references, are a Native American tribe and, in Canada, a recognized First Nations band government. Subsequently, the Lenape became subjugated and made tributary to first the Susquehannocks, then the Iroquois, iroquoian peoples occasionally fought the Lenape. As the 1700s progressed, many surviving Lenape moved west —into the upper Ohio River basin, during the decades of the 18th century most Lenape were pushed out of their homeland by expanding European colonies, exacerbated by losses from intertribal conflicts. The divisions and troubles of the American Revolutionary War and United States independence pushed them farther west, in the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory under the Indian removal policy. In the 21st century, most Lenape now reside in the US state of Oklahoma, with communities living also in Wisconsin, Ontario. Lenape kinship system has matrilineal clans, that is, children belong to their mothers clan, from which they gain social status, the mothers eldest brother was more significant as a mentor to the male children than was their father, who was generally of another clan. Hereditary leadership passed through the line, and women elders could remove leaders of whom they disapproved. Agricultural land was managed by women and allotted according to the needs of their extended families. Families were matrilocal, newlywed couples would live with the brides family, lenni-Lenape comes from their autonym, Lenni, which may mean genuine, pure, real, original, and Lenape, meaning Indian or man. Alternately, lënu may be translated as man, the tribes other name, Delaware, is not of Native American origin. English colonists named the Delaware River for the first governor of the Province of Virginia, Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, the English then began to call the Lenape the Delaware Indians because of where they lived. Swedes also settled in the area, and early Swedish sources listed the Lenape as the Renappi, traditional Lenape lands, the Lenapehoking, was a large territory that encompassed the Delaware Valley of eastern Pennsylvania. The Swedes and Dutch at New Castle, a Lenâpé-English Dictionary, From An Anonymous In The Archives Of The Moravian Church At Bethlehem. David Zeisbergers History of Northern American Indians, grammar of the Language of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians. The Diary of David Zeisberger, A Moravian Missionary Among the Ohio Indians, the Diary of David Zeisberger, A Moravian Missionary Among the Ohio Indians, Volume 2. Zeisberger’s Indian Dictionary, English, German, Iroquois—The Onondaga and Algonquin—The Delaware, “The Delaware that Zeisberger translated was Munsee, and not Unami. Adams, Richard Calmit, The Delaware Indians, a history, Hope Farm Press Bierhorst. The White Deer and Other Stories Told by the Lenape, ISBN 0-688-12900-5 Brown, James W. and Rita T. Kohn, eds
10.
Cayuga Lake
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Cayuga Lake is the longest of central New Yorks glacial Finger Lakes, and is the second largest in surface area and second largest in volume. It is just under 40 miles long and its average width is 1.7 miles, and it is 3.5 mi wide at its widest point near Aurora. It is approximately 435 ft deep at its deepest point, the city of Ithaca, site of Ithaca College and Cornell University, is located at the southern end of Cayuga Lake. Villages and settlements along the east shore of Cayuga Lake include Myers, King Ferry, Aurora, Levanna, Union Springs, settlements along the west shore of the lake include Sheldrake, Poplar Beach, and Canoga. The lake has one small island near Union Springs, Frontenac Island and it is one of only two islands in the Finger Lakes, the other being Squaw Island in Canandaigua Lake. Cayuga Lake is located at 42°41′00″N 76°41′46″W,116.4 metres above sea level and its depth, steep east and west sides with shallow north and south ends is typical of the Finger Lakes, as they were carved by glaciers during the last ice age. The water level is regulated by the Mud Lock at the end of the lake. It is connected to Lake Ontario by the Erie Canal and Seneca Lake by the Seneca River, the lake is drawn down as winter approaches, to minimize ice damage and to maximize its capacity to store heavy spring runoff. The north end is dominated by shallow mudflats, an important stopover for migratory birds, the mudflats and marsh are the location of the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge. The southern end is also shallow and often freezes during the winter, the fish population is managed and substantial sport fishing is practiced, with anglers targeting smelt, lake trout and smallmouth bass. Cayuga Lake is very popular among recreational boaters, the Allan H. Treman State Marine Park, a large state marina and boat launch, is located at the southern end of the lake in Ithaca. There are two clubs on the western shore, Ithaca Yacht Club a few miles north of Ithaca. There are several marinas and boat launches scattered along the lake shore. One of these systems, which is operated by Cornell University, the AES Cayuga electrical generating station operates in the Town of Lansing, on the east shore of Cayuga Lake. This coal-fired plant uses Cayuga Lake as a cooling source, in the late 1960s, citizens successfully opposed the construction of an 830-MW nuclear power plant on the shore of Cayuga Lake. Rod Serling named his production company Cayuga Productions during the years of his TV series, Serling and his family had a summer home at Cayuga Lake. The lake is the subject of local folklore, Cornells alma mater makes reference to its position Far Above Cayugas Waters, while that of Ithaca College references Cayugas shore. A tradition at Wells College in Aurora holds that if the lake freezes over
11.
Niagara Falls
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They form the southern end of the Niagara Gorge. From largest to smallest, the three waterfalls are the Horseshoe Falls, the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls, the Horseshoe Falls lies on the border of the United States and Canada with the American Falls entirely on the American side, separated by Goat Island. The smaller Bridal Veil Falls are also on the American side, the international boundary line was originally drawn through Horseshoe Falls in 1819, but the boundary has long been in dispute due to natural erosion and construction. Located on the Niagara River, which drains Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, Horseshoe Falls is the most powerful waterfall in North America, as measured by vertical height and flow rate. The falls are 17 miles north-northwest of Buffalo, New York, while not exceptionally high, the Niagara Falls are very wide. More than six cubic feet of water falls over the crest line every minute in high flow. The Niagara Falls are famed both for their beauty and as a source of hydroelectric power. Balancing recreational, commercial, and industrial uses has been a challenge for the stewards of the falls since the 19th century. The Horseshoe Falls drop about 188 feet, while the height of the American Falls varies between 70 and 100 feet because of the presence of giant boulders at its base. The larger Horseshoe Falls are about 2,600 feet wide, the distance between the American extremity of the Niagara Falls and the Canadian extremity is 3,409 feet. The volume of water approaching the falls during peak season may sometimes be as much as 225,000 cubic feet per second. The average annual rate is 85,000 cubic feet per second. Since the flow is a function of the Lake Erie water elevation. This is accomplished by employing a weir – the International Control Dam – with movable gates upstream from the Horseshoe Falls. The falls flow is further halved at night, and, during the low tourist season in the winter, water diversion is regulated by the 1950 Niagara Treaty and is administered by the International Niagara Board of Control. The current rate of erosion is approximately 1 foot per year and it is estimated that 50,000 years from now, even at this reduced rate of erosion, the remaining 20 miles to Lake Erie will have been undermined and the falls will cease to exist. The features that became Niagara Falls were created by the Wisconsin glaciation about 10,000 years ago, the same forces also created the North American Great Lakes and the Niagara River. All were dug by an ice sheet that drove through the area, deepening some river channels to form lakes
