Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/184

 164

��A Summer on the Great Lakes.

��of the Detroit," obsen/ed Vincent, complacently.

" You hard, cold utilitarian ! " ex- claimed the Historian ; " who cares any- thing about that? It is the romance of the thing that would charm me."

" And the romance consists in its being distant. We always talk of the good old times as though they were really any better than our own age ! It is a beautiful delusion. Don't you

��the lakes communicating with the St. Lawrence, but no others. As the Falls of Niagara must always have existed, it would puzzle the naturalists to say how those fish got into the upper lakes unless there is a subterranean river ; moreover, any periodical obstruction of the river would furnish a not im- probable solution of the mysterious flux and influx of the lakes.

Some after noon we steamed past a

��know how in walking the shady places small city on the southern coast which

��are always behind us?"

The Historian's only answer to this banter was to shrug his shoulders scorn- fully and to liglit a fresh cigar.

Lake Erie is about two hundred and

��had a large natural harbor.

" Erie and Presque Isle Bay," an- nounced the Historian. "A famous place. From it sailed Oliver Hazard Perry with his fleet of nine sail to most

��forty miles in length and has a mean unmercifully drub the British lion on

��breadth of forty miles. Its surface is three hundred and thirty feet above Lake Ontario, and five hundred and sixty-five above the level of the sea. It receives the waters of the upper lakes by means of the Detroit River, and discharges them again by the Niagara into Lake Ontario. Lake Erie has a shallow depth, but Ontario, which is five hundred and two feet deep, is two hxmdred and thirty feet below the tide level of the ocean, or as low as most parts of .the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the bottoms of Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior, although their surface is much higher, are all, from their vast

��that tenth day of September, 181 3. The battle took place some distance from here over against Sandusky. J will tell you all about it when we get there. My grandfather was one of the actorSi*'

He said no more, and for a long time the conversation was sustained by Vincent and myself. The steamer put in at Cleveland just at dusk. The stop was brief, however, and we left the beautiful and thriving city looking like a queen on the Ohio shore under the bridal veil of night. The evening was brilliant with moonlight. The lake was like a mirror or an enchanted sea.

��depths, on a level with the bottom of Hour after hour passed, and we still sat Ontario. Now, as the discharge through on deck gazing on the scene. Far to

��Detroit River, after allowing all the probable portion carried off by evapo- ration, does not appear by any means equal to the quantity of water which the other three lakes receive, it has been conjectured that a subterranean river may run from Lake Ontario. This conjecture is not improbable, and accounts for the singular fact that salmon and herring are caught in all

��the south we saw the many lights of a city shining. It was Sandusky.

" How delightful it is ! " murmured Vincent.

"Beautiful," I replied. " If it were only the Ionian Sea, now, or the cleat yEgean" —

"Those classic waters cannot match this lake," interrupted Hugh. "The battle of Erie will outlive Salamis or

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