SANDUSKY Bay AND CEDAR POINT 225 
RECENT RIDGEs. 
Ridge 8 extends along the lake to within 361% rods of the 
Beacon Light at the inner end of the jetty. It is only three or 
four feet higher than the valley behind it, but is growing. Its crest 
is well covered with cottonwoods whose lower branches are 
partly buried in the sand and whose tops rise only eight feet 
above it. Several of these cut with a jack knife showed five 
rings. It has evidently formed since the jetty was begun, Oct., 
1896, and probably because of the accumulation of sand produced 
by that obstruction. At the north end is a group of cotton- 
woods 11 to 14 feet tall. These may have been a factor in deter- 
‘mining its location. Besides cottonwoods Ridge 8 has a number 
of small willows, but no other trees. 
In the valley behind Ridge 8, is a conspicuous line of drift- 
wood and many fragments of coal from wrecks marking the place 
where the waves came before this ridge was formed. 
Ridge 7 is longer, broader and higher, rising 12 to 16 feet 
above the lake. Its crest is covered with cottonwoods 35—50 
feet tall growing almost to the exclusion of other trees. In one 
spot are several buttonwoods 12-17 inches in circumference. 
There is a willow (Salix amygdaloides) 17 inches in circumference 
quite a number of white ash, the tallest 6 feet, an oak and a 
maple less than 2 feet. Two cottonwoods were found with a 
circumference of 37 inches. One of them 52 feet tall was cut 
three feet from the ground and 21 rings counted. As the section 
was 3)4 feet above ‘the roots and the inner circle thick, three or 
four years may be added in estimating the age, making it 24 or 
25 years. Ridge 7 has no trees much older than this. It prob- 
ably originated in 1878 the year of maximum rainfall at Cleveland 
and Buffalo. This is the year in which a ridge was formed on 
the Marblehead Sand Spit on the other side of the.entrance to 
Sandusky Bay from Cedar Point according to a fisherman who 
lived there. On September 11, 1878, occurred the great storm 
described in the first chapter. No doubt this or the storm of 
August 15, 1879, probably both, were instrumental in the build- 
ing of this high ridge. Cottonwoods started on it in 1880 and 
were not all destroyed by the great storm of April 23, 1882, but 
their roots more deeply covered. The ridge was then finished SO 
far as the work of the waves was concerned. 
In the valley behind ridge 7 and resting upon the base of 
ridge 6 is a line of driftwood, some of it AOHER In it were found 
a cleat of a boat and a large cinder or clinker. There are also 
shells of clams and other mollusca that live in the lake. Shells 
and coal were found both on and below the surface, a fish bone 
below the surface. 
