THE NORTH AMERICAN LAKES. 333 



and by its own work. The undertaking is chiefly in French hands, 

 and we Germans have but little interest to favor the extension of 

 French glory and success ; but the divergencies which exist between 

 nations should disappear in face of the great spirit of enterprise, which 

 animates the director of the canal, M. de Lesseps, and in face of the 

 private capital invested, which, though it be invested to promote 

 private interests, has a general interest as well." * 



Of such views it is safe to say that they are at least deserving of 

 consideration. They are much to the credit of the writer, whose 

 breadth of view and liberality of judgment alone enabled him to pen 

 them. 







THE NORTH AMERICAN LAKES. 



By ISAAC KINLEY. 



IN America, as in the Eastern Continent, the North is the land of 

 lakes. A line from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the western 

 end of Lake Erie, and thence to the mouth of the Mackenzie, lies 

 through and near a succession of lakes unequaled in number and 

 aggregate area by any other like extent on the earth. The great 

 North American depression, extending northward from the Gulf of 

 Mexico, bifurcates at about the fortieth parallel, one branch trending 

 northeastwardly to the Atlantic Ocean, and the other northwestwardly 

 to the Arctic, lying nearly at right angles to each other, and in ap- 

 proximate parallelism to the mountain-ranges and shore-lines of the 

 continent. 



The forty-second parallel holds, to the north of it, nearly all the 

 North American lakes, while to the south are numerous lake-basins, 

 some of them rivaling even Superior in extent. These have been 

 drained of their waters by the deepening channels of their effluent 

 streams ; or, as in the arid regions of the Southwest, by evaporation. 



If we define a lake as, what geologically it actually is, a local 

 digression of the surface, and treat the pressure or absence of water 

 as only one of its accidents, we shall find the South, no less than the 

 North, to be a land of lakes. 



Lake-basins may be due 



1. To local sinkings of the surface. 



2. To excavations, notably by glaciers. 



3. To the extinction of volcanoes, their craters filling with water. 



4. To the breaking down of cave-roofs by earthquakes or other 

 causes. 



To the first and second of these agents are probably due nearly all 

 the existing North American lakes, in some the one and in some the 



* "Bulletin du Canal InterocSanique," December 1, 1886. 



