Maritime History of the Great Lakes

Thompson's Coast Pilot for the Upper Lakes, on Both Shores, from Chicago to Buffalo, Green Bay, Georgian Bay and Lake Superior ... [4th ed.], p. 7

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THOMPSON'S COAST PILOT. oe 7 presenting a large expanse of pure water. Its most remarkable fea- ture is Saginaw Bay, lying on its western border. The waters of this lake are now whitened by the sails of commerce, it being the great thoroughfare to and from Lakes Michigan and Superior. Gzoraian Bay, lying northeast of Lake Huron, and cf the same altitude, being separated by islands and headlands, lies wholly with- in the confines of Canada. It is 140 miles long, 55 miles broad, and 500 feet in depth; area, 5,000 square miles. In the Worth Channel, which communicates with St. Mary's River, and in Georgian Bay, -- are innumerable islands and inlets, forming an interesting and ro- mantic feature to this pure body of water. All the above bodies of water, into which are discharged a great number of streams, find _ an outlet by the River St. Clair, commencing at the foot of Lake Huron, where it has only a width of 1,000 feet, and a depth of from 20 to 60 feet, flowing with a rapid current downward, 38 miles, into Laxe St. Cua, which is-25 miles long and about as many broad, with a small depth of water; the most difficult. navigation being encountered in passing over '* St. Clair Flats,'? where only abont 12 feet of water is afforded. Detroit River, 27 miles in length, is the recipient of all the above waters, flowing southward through a fine section of country into : Laks Erm, the fourth great lake of this immense chain. This latter lake again, at an elevation above the sea of 564 feet, 250 miles long, 60 miles. broad, and 204 feet at its greatest depth, but, on an average, considerably less than 100 feet deep, discharges its surplus waters by the Niagara River and' Falls, into Lake Ontario, 330 feet below ; 51 feet of this descent being in the Rapids immediately above the Falls, 160 feet at the Falls themselves, and the rest chiefly in the Rapids between the Falls and the mouth of the river, 22 miles below Lake Erie. This is comparatively a shallow body of water ; and the relative depths of the great series of lakes may be il- lustrated by saying, that the surplus waters poured from the vast basins of Superior, Michigan, and Huron, flow across the plate of Erie into the deep bowl of Ontario. Lake Hrie is reputed to be the only one of the series in which any current is perceptible. 'The fact, if it is one, is usually ascribed to its shallowness; but the vast volumn of its outlet---the Niagara River--with its strong current, is

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