,368 General Description of Lake Erie, 



tion.with the main, as to allow batteaux to be hauled over, and, 

 in fact, when the lake is high, its water flows across in the form 

 of a creek. The curve (with a chord of 57 miles) of which it 

 is the west angle, is only well marked in this its west end, the 

 remainder toward the fort of the lake being almost straight, but 

 subdivided as usual. A scrubby height of rock and sand jutting 

 into the lake ten miles from Fort Erie, called Point Abino, is 

 sometimes used as shelter against a south-west gale. 



Such is the form of the north, or Canadian coast. On the 

 south side, about 42 miles easterly of the west end of the lake, 

 Sandusky Bay is a great deviation from the usual outline of 

 its shores. Its entrance is nearly S.E. from the mouth of the 

 River Detroit. I have several times visited it ; but all I know 

 of it is best summed up in the following words of Mr. Darby 

 (Tour, p. 180, 181) : — " The narrow strip forming Point Penin- 

 sula of Sandusky Bay is twenty miles long and two to three 

 broad, and ends east by an additional low narrow point two 

 miles long, meeting a similar long, low, narrow bar, projecting 

 from the main. The last is called Sandy Point ; the other. 

 Point Prospect; the entrance being close to Point Sandy. The 

 bay is about four miles wide, and so continues almost to its 

 head, except at the Narrows, about five miles above the village 

 of Sandusky. Its shores are but little raised above the v^rater, 

 and are, in some places, flat and marshy." The village of San- 

 dusky is on the south-east side of the bay, and near the en- 

 trance. It is a miserable cluster of houses facing the water. 

 The river Sandusky enters at the west end of the village. 

 Another collection of deserted dwellings is about three miles 

 below, called Venice. The whole vicinity is peculiarly subject 

 to remittent and intermittent fevers of dangerous character. 



From Sandusky Bay eastwards, with the exception of two 

 slight inflexions, in which are placed the mouths of the rivers 

 Huron and Cuyahoga, the south shore is remarkably straight. 

 Ninety miles, however, from the east end, there is a long narrow 

 tongue of land, called Presqu'isle, two miles south of the village 

 of Erie, which, near its termination, inclines a little toward* 

 the main shore, and so forms a fine harbour, assisted by a 

 broad bar, which connects the outer end of this low headland 

 to the main : it has seven feet water. The village is built on a 



