74 Proceedings of the Ohio State Academy of Science. 



Where the heaths have once gained entrance they are better 

 able than the taller shrubs as Rhus and Alnus, to supplant the 

 vegetation of the meadow. The growth is dense, the lower 

 strata become so dry and shaded that the Sphagnum and Oxy- 

 coccus cannot long survive. Again the pioneer Gaylussacias do 

 not come in as seedlings but as the advancing margin of shoots 

 from the parent zone. This zone if left undisturbed, will sup- 

 plant the meadow faster and more eftectively than will the shrub- 

 tree zone. 



//. Forest-clad islands zchich were elei'ations on the swamp 

 floor or were parts of the forest not included in the original 

 szvamp. Orchard Island is an example of the first and Lieh's 

 Island of the second type of this class of islands. 



Orchard Island. 



(Fig. 27.) 



Orchard Island is one of a group of four wooded islands 

 situated in the southwest portion of the old reservoir and close 

 to the south shore. These islands were elevations in the Big 

 Swamp of wdiich Buckeye Lake is the successor, and were high 

 enough to escape inundation when the swamp was converted 

 into the reservoir in 1832, and later when the addition of the 

 new reservoir in 1836 occasioned the raising of the water level an 

 additional four feet. The highest portions of these islands re- 

 main above water at the standard or high water level, which is 

 twenty-three inches above the normal. They bear large forest 

 trees, some of which are twenty-eight inches in diameter. 



Orchard Island is the largest of these. It has an area of 

 2.95 acres and is irregular in shape with the longest diameter 

 from the southeast to the northwest. It lies about 200 feet 

 from the south shore of the lake and is connected on the west 

 by a marsh with State Journal Island. The entire surface has 

 been apportioned into lots with an undivided area of common 

 ground at the foot of the public dock, a narrow marginal area. 



