May, 1912. J A Study of Buckeye Lake and Vicinity. 52 [ 



a tributary to this lake. Moreover this lake if not with a larger 

 oulet than inflow of water must have existed for a long span of 

 time and would have left unmistakable evidence of its presence in 

 lake beaches, sand? and clay deposited on its floor and deltas at 

 the mouths of its tributaries. 



All the records of gas wells in this region, from which I was 

 able to obtain details, show a thin mantle, in some wells but 8-10 

 feet thick, of glacial clay overlying a heavy bed of gravel. In one 

 such well close to the Baltimore and Ohio railroad tracks and 134 

 miles north of the lake the gravel is but 2 feet below the surface 

 and is 100 feet thick. In another well in the field west of the Ohio 

 Electric railwa\^ and but a few rods from the north shore of the 

 lake, there was, according to the foreman's notes, 10 feet of loam 

 and 350 feet of sand and gravel. All the water wells near Buckeye 

 Lake are in the gravel. In one at the Glass Hotel on the north 

 shore, sand was entered at 10 feet below the surface, and the well 

 is in gravel at 75 feet. In some of these wells sand lies above the 

 gravel and in others beneath it. This thick stratum of gravel was 

 not deposited in the quiet waters of a lake. So massive a load can 

 only have been carried by the flood waters from a glacier. The 

 gravel is evidently an outwash deposit. 



II. The physiographic history of Buckeye Lake. 



Btickeye Lake is situated in Licking, Fairfield and Perry 

 counties, in Ranges 17 and 18, Townships 17, 18 and 19. It is a 

 long irregular body of water with its longest diam.eter froin east to 

 west. It is approximately 7| miles long from the southeastern 

 most extremity to the western and varies in width from 3<4 niile in 

 the eastern portion to 13^ miles at the extreme western end. The 

 area covered is estimated at 4,200 acres. The lake is quite 

 shallow; the water over large areas does not exceed a depth of 

 6-8 feet at the normal water level; but there are a few deeper 

 depressions. Soundings just off the south shore of Cranberry 

 island revealed a depth of 15 feet, and near Avondale a depth of 

 25 feet, which Mr. Bootin, the engineer of the Canal Coinmission 

 assures me is the greatest depth he has found. 



This basin was built in 1832 to serve as a reservoir for the Ohio 

 canal. On May 21, 1894, the General Assembly of Ohio passed 

 an act reserving it for a public park and summer resort to be known 

 as Buckeye Lake. 



The site of the reservoir was a more or less completely tree- 

 covered impassable swamp, known to the Indians and early 

 settlers as the "Big Swamp," "Two Lakes" or "Big and Little 

 Lake."' It lay diagonally across the southeast corner of Town- 

 ship 17 and almost half across the southern border of Township 19. 

 In shape and area it approximated the present lake. In the 



7. Graham, A. A. History of Licking County. O. Chap. XVII, p. 16.5. 1881. 



