SANDUSKY Bay AND CEpDAR POINT 191 
RECESSION OF THE Bay SHORE. 
Map II shows the present shore line taken from the topo- 
graphic sheets of the U. S. Geological Survey except the north- 
east portion, the sheet for which has not yet been issued. The 
broken line shows a portion of the shore as it was at the time of 
the first surveys 1809-1820. In quite a number of places lines 
running from section lines to the bay shore whose length is 
recorded in the original surveys have been remeasured in recent 
years by local surveyors or by myself and these data, as well as a 
comparison of the old plats with the recent maps published by 
the U. S. Geological Survey, have enabled me to estimate the 
amount of land lost. The greatest change has been along the 
south shore from Martin’s Point west. Here the bay is wider 
than farther east and as erosion is accomplished mostly by the 
northeast storms, which raise the level of the water, the waves 
beat upon this shore with greater force than on the shore oppo- 
site. The west line of section 34 Portage Annexation, northwest 
extremity of Erie county I found in 1904 had shortened about 
66 rods since the first survey. The middle line of the west half 
of section 35 Charles Judson found in 1895 had shortened 62 
rods. At other places the change shown by surveys is not so 
great. However, the survey by Sylvanus Bourne, 1820, of 
Township VI North, Range XVI East lst Meridian, at the west 
end of the bay, gives no measurements for the portion lying 
south of Mud Creek Bay and the shore line in this part of the 
township is not correctly drawn on his plat. Porter Wright who 
has owned much of the land in this region told me in 1904 that 
the whole west shore of the bay south from Eagle Island had 
washed away as much as eighty rods within his remembrance. 
He is seventy years old. At Dudrow’s in Townsend Township 
he knows the recession of the shore is more than that. Miles 
Pearson thinks 100 rods of land north of the mouth of Raccoon 
Creek has washed away in the last fifty years and 60 rods between 
Raccoon Creek and Pickerel Creek in the same time. These 
estimates H. A. Winters who also has long been familiar with 
the region considers not too high. 
At five places on the south shore of the western half of the 
bay, according to estimates of the several land owners, encroach- 
ment of the water has been from three to six rods in as many 
years, most of it in the last three years, because the water has 
been high. For seven or eight years preceding the last three 
there was hardly any encroachment in some of the places. In 
the western extremity of Erie county, where the road turns 
south, I found the bay eating it away, Sept. 2, 1904. The old 
