180 Out1o STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
the decade or generation or century surpasses the combined 
effect of all minor floods. In littoral transportation the great 
storm bears the same relation to the minor storm and to the 
fair weather breeze. The waves created by the great storm not 
only lift more detritus from each unit of the littoral zone, but 
they act upon a broader zone, and they are competent to move 
larger masses. The currents which accompany them are cor- 
respondingly rapid and carry forward the augmented shore drift 
at an accelerated rate.’’—Gilbert. 
The greatest storms of the past century or those which were 
most effective because occurring at time of highest water were 
those of 1857-1862. 
The water covered the land where the Sandusky Tool 
Factory stands and the street adjacent so that the workmen went 
to the building, then a saw mill, in row boats. It flooded the 
cellars on the south side of Railroad Street. The part of the city 
near the end of First Street and east of it was under water. These 
storms damaged the bridge across Sandusky Bay and the rail- 
road near Port Clinton. Along miles and miles of shore and over 
hundreds of acres of lowland they killed trees that had stood for 
centuries. They cut away large slices of Eagle Island at the 
head of the bay and the last remnant of Spit Island at the mouth 
of the bay. They cut through the land west of Port Clinton 
giving an outlet for the Portage River about one-fourth mile 
farther west than before, but the breach was afterwards closed 
by the-ly.cs/ &!M.)S. R> R.:Co:, - They built upon the northeast 
shore of Cedar Point long sand ridges twelve feet high on which 
hundreds of cottonwoods have since grown to a height of fifty or 
sixty feet. 
The preceding statements may suffice to illustrate the sort 
of changes effected by northeast gales but those who have seen 
Lake Erie only when it is calm or stirred by winds of moderate 
force will be further impressed with its power by a brief notice of 
particular storms which are remembered by old residents or 
noted in the journal of the weather observer. 
The northeast storms of 1857-1862 are said to have been 
more frequent and usually of longer duration than those of late 
years. Regarding this point a number of old residents agree 
and they are probably not mistaken, for the records of rainfall at 
the stations in this part of the country where records were kept 
so early show that the precipitation of 1857 and 1858 has not 
been equalled since. 
Captain Freyensee and Mr. Haas, then in charge of the 
Swan, are sure that the water became exceedingly high in 
August, 1857, during a thunderstorm accompanied by a violent 
