541 



enters the lake from the north, just eastward of this island, and flows 

 directly through the Nippisink. The length of a curved line extending 

 through the central part of this lake, from end to end, is very nearly 

 three miles, and the width of the widest part is about a mile and a quar- 

 ter. The shores are bold, broken, and wooded, except to the north, 

 where they are marshy and flat. All the northern and eastern part of 

 the lake was visibly shallow — covered with weeds and feeding water- 

 fowl, and I made no soundings there. The water there was probably 

 nowhere more than two fathoms in depth, and over most of that area 

 was doubtless under one and a half. In the western part, five lines of 

 soundings were run, four of them radiating from Lippincott's Point, 

 and the fifth crossing three of these nearly at right angles. The deepest 

 water was found in the middle of the mouth of the western bay, where 

 a small area of five fathoms occurs. On the line running northeast from 

 the Point, not more than one and three fburths fathoms is found. The 

 bottom at a short distance from the shores was everywhere a soft, deep 

 mud. Four hauls of the dredge were made in the western bay, and the 

 surface net was dragged about a mile. 



Long Lake differs from this especially in its isolation, and in its 

 smaller size. It is about a mile and a half in length by a mile in breadth. 

 Its banks are all bold except at the western end, where a marshy valley 

 traversed by a small creek connects it with Fox Lake, at a distance of 

 about two miles. The deepest sounding made was six and a half fath- 

 oms, while the average depth of the deepest part of the bed was about 

 five fathoms. 



Cedar Lake, upon which we spent a fortnight, is a pretty sheet of 

 water, the head of a chain of six lakes which open finally into the Fox. 

 It is about a mile in greatest diameter in each direction, with a small but 

 charming island bank near the center, covered with bushes and vines — a 

 favorite home of birds and wild flowers. The shores vary from rolling to 

 bluffy except for a narrow strip of marsh through which the outlet passes, 

 and the bottoms and margins are gravel, sand, and mud in different parts 

 of its area. Much of the lake is shallow and full of water plants ; but the 

 southern part reaches a depth of fifty feet a short distance from the 

 eastern bluff. 



Deep Lake, the second of this chain, is of similar character, with 

 a greatest depth of fifty-seven feet — the deepest sounding we made 

 in these smaller lakes of Illinois. In these two lakes several temper- 

 atures were taken with a differential thermometer. In Deep Lake, for 

 example, at fifty-seven feet I found the bottom temperature 53}^° — 

 about that of ordinary well-water — when the air was 63° ; and in Cedar 

 Lake, at forty-eight feet, the bottom was 58° when the air was 61°. 



Geneva Lake, Wisconsin, is a clear and beautiful body of water 

 about eight miles long by one and a quarter in greatest width. The 

 banks are all high, rollin.^. and woi dc-d, cxctpt at the eastern end, where 

 its outlet rises. Its deepest water is found in its western third, where it 

 reaches a depth of twenty-three fathoms. I made here, early in Novem- 



