Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/88

 all comes from the Northern lakes. A hundred facts are at hand which prove the contrary, even in the vicinity of the lakes. Among these are the magnetic wells at Three Rivers and other places in Michigan and other States. Certainly, Chautauqua, in New York, which has been shown to be but a large overflowing spring, does not draw its supply from these lakes, as its surface is many feet above even that of Superior, the highest of the four Northern lakes.

At different times irregular tidal influences have been observed on these lakes, an example of which is given in this news-note printed in the "Springfield Republican," June 26, 1876: "The water in the canal at Sault Ste.-Marie, Michigan, began rising about ten o'clock Friday morning without any apparent cause, and reached a greater height than has been known for many years. Its variation was four feet nine inches in one hour and twenty minutes," All this without apparent cause. Continuous western winds would have been an "apparent cause," but this did not exist. This and other irregular tidal influences on these lakes are in harmony with the supposed internal force for which we seek.

The following is also well authenticated: "Silver Springs, one of Florida's curiosities, is a subterranean river bubbling up into a basin nearly 100 feet deep and an acre in extent, which sends out a stream 60 to 100 feet wide to the Ocklawaha River six miles distant. To this natural inland port run three streams from St. John's, and in the basin the fish and everything on the bottom can be seen through the crystal waters." Here is a case for which no adequate cause recognized by scientists can with certainty account. A singular case occurs on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, opposite the town of Alvarado. A ridge of sand has formed on the beach by the action of the wind. It is within memory that, before this ridge formation, "a fresh-water spring was known to exist at its northern extremity, which was then but a few feet in height. The spring is there still, though the ridge is twenty feet in height, the water rising to the top of the ridge."

But instances need not be multiplied. The ordinary observer will recall the common fact that the highest land is universally best supplied with flowing springs, and that these overflows can not be accounted for on the supposition of the fall of waters from higher grounds, since such higher grounds do not adequately exist. "The cataract issuing from the Himalayas, or as it is sometimes called Roodroo, is the source of the river Jumna—a rapid and large river; and in fact, many of the largest rivers of the world proceed immediately from mountains and lakes that are formed from cataracts." Thus the Ganges, Nile, Indus, Senegal, Rhine, Rhône, Vistula, Elbe, Loire, Guadiana, Po, Adige, Swale, Tay, Severn, Don, Monongahela, Platte, Missouri, and numerous others have their sources directly in mountains, and many of these "receive no increase from tributary streams, but issue with such astonishing abundance from rocks as to overflow and fertilize the