307 



Let us then, for a moment, consider "this interesting question" solv- 

 ed, and proceed to inquire liow far the results to which we are brought 

 by the supposed elevation of the lake waters one hundred and seven feet 

 above the present level of Lake Erie, accords with repeated observations 

 made throughout the lake region. Supposing the characteristics of the 

 land to have been relatively the same as now, the great lakes, which at 

 present are but links of a connecting chain, would become merged in 

 one immense iriegular sea; their breadth being increased many miles 

 on either side, while their connecting bands are lost in the wide ex- 

 panse. The northern part of om* Peninsula becomes an island, or sepa- 

 rated by only a narrow neck across a wide frith, following the valleys 

 of the Saginaw and Grand Rivers. The western and eastern tier of 

 counties are flooded, and the Maumee country as far as Fort Wayne. 

 West of Lake Michigan, the spread of the waters is stiU wider; em- 

 bracing, perhaps, with the exception of some islands, more than half of 

 Wisconsin, and the whole of the immensely broad valleys of the Illi- 

 nois, Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Upper Canada assumes the form of 

 ■an island in the wide spread waste. The roar of Niagara is drowned 

 beneath the rolhng billows of a broad and deep inland ocean, having a 

 breadth at this point of more than sixty miles. While, sti-etching off to 

 the east, the waters involve a great share of Lower Canada, the whole of 

 the Genessee country of New York, with most of its chain of lakes, and 

 a communication is made with the ocean, both by way of the St. Law- 

 rence, and the valley of the Mohawk. 



It will be apparent, then, that the great " basin of the St. Lawrence," 

 within which all the present basins of the lakes are included, as well as 

 the immensely broad and fertile " valleys of the Mississippi," become 

 one continuous sea, in which whatever of the present land remains, are 

 as islands in the deep. 



The difficulties which oppose this supposition are, the almost unlim- 

 ited supply of water required to furnish a basin of such extent, and the 

 want of barriers to confine its discharge into the oceaij. But one the- 

 ory presents itself, competent to solve difficulties of such magnitude. 

 The supply of water must have come from the ocean itself. Conse- 

 quently, the surrounding and interior seas, must have had the same lev- 

 el and the greater elevation of the lakes relatively, to the surrounding 

 .land, was the result, not of their increased actual elevation, but of the 



