Note 128 — Chapter IV

"In extreme depth Lake Erie varies from forty to forty-five fathoms, with a rocky bottom. Lakes Superior and Huron have a stiff, clayey bottom, mixed with shells. Lake Erie reported 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 volume of its outlet—the Niagara River—with its strong current, is a much more probable cause than the small depth of its water, which may be far more appropriately adduced as the reason why the navigation is obstructed by ice much more than either of the other great lakes. As connected with trade and navigation, this lake is the most important of all the great chain, not only because it is bordered by older settlements than any of them except Ontario, but still more because from its position it concentrates the trade of the vast West. The Kingston Herald notices a most extraordinary occurrence on Lake Erie during a late storm (1836). A channel was made by the violence of the tempest through Long Point, N. Foreland, 300 yards wide, and from 11 to 15 feet deep. It had been in contemplation to cut a canal at this very spot, the expenses of which were estimated at £12,000. The York Courier confirms this extraordinary intelligence, stating that the storm made a breach through the point near the main land, converted the peninsula into an island, and actually made a canal 400 yards wide, and eight or ten feet deep, almost at the very point where the proposed canal was to be cut, and rendered nothing else now necessary in order to secure a safe channel for the vessels, and a good harbor on both sides, than the construction of a pier on the west side, to prevent the channel being filled up with sand."—Montgomery Martin.