General Description of Lake Erie, 367 



(including its bay) to the mouth of the Detroit River, (by 

 Maumee River, &c.) the margin of the lake is almost alto- 

 gether a marsh, with here and there a sandy beach and a few 

 boulders. 



In the form of its shores, Lake Erie obeys the law common 

 to all the lakes of this chain (or parts of lakes) resting on 

 secondary or diluvial materials. They describe large and regu- 

 lar, but shallow curvatures, unbroken by the multitude of land* 

 locked coves and inlets, which beset a coast formed of a 

 more ancient order of rocks. There are, in fact, almost no 

 harbours in the lake. The headlands, where they do not ter- 

 minate in long spits of sand, are often so obtuse as to disappear 

 on near approach. The west shores of this lake are distributed 

 into these extensive curves ;— on the south side, so great as to 

 be only two in number, from Maumee River to Hat Point of 

 Sandusky Peninsula, while almost exactly two-thirds of the 

 distance between Point Pele and the Detroit (33 miles) is 

 taken up by the unvarying concavity of Pigeon Bay, which is, 

 indeed, much larger than is represented on the maps at present 

 in us^. The river Detroit enters Lake Erie by a very wide 

 mouth, but without occasioning a distinct bay. That at the 

 mouth of the Maumee River, (24 J miles S.S.W. of the Detroit,) 

 the only harbour on the Main between it and Sandusky, is 3J 

 miles wide at the mouth, and has two small islands off its 

 southern angle, which is called Cedar Point. There are seven 

 feet of water at the bar (Darby, p. 203). It is very swampy 

 within, and contracts gradually as it meets the river. 



The north shore east of Point Pele, independently of a 

 great number of shallow indents, quite open to storms, is divided 

 into three chief flexures, by Landguard and Long Points. 

 Point Pele is a narrow stripe of marsh and sand, ten miles long, 

 in a southerly direction. Close to it, on the. main, is a swamp, 

 with a large pond at its centre. The gentle curvature which, 

 together with Landguard Point, it contains, is 40 miles across. 

 {Furdy^s Cabotia^) The next curve, bounded by Landguard 

 and Long Points, is 94 miles across, (Purdy.) It exhibits no 

 features of note. Long Point projects eastwards into the lake 

 for nearly 20 miles, making an arm that embays a large body 

 of water. It is always narrow ; and so much so near its junc« 



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