4 Dr. Bigsby's Sketch of the Topographtj 



The depth of Lake Ontario varies very much, but is seldom 

 less than three fathoms, or more than fifty, although in the 

 middle, attempts have been made with three hundred fathoms, 

 without striking soundings (Bouchette). The prevailing idea 

 of its beino- every where of immense depth, is not correct. Its 

 waters, taken at a proper distance from shore, are particularly 

 transparent and well-Uisted ; but not so soft and suitable for 

 the solution of soap as rain water. Its level has been ascer- 

 tained by the commissioners for the construction of the western 

 canal (Erie) of the state of NewYork, to be 231 feet above that 

 of the Atlantic Ocean. 



There is something which may be mistaken for tides in this 

 and the other great lakes. " It is most perceptible in the bays 

 and inlets, and is accounted for on the principle of the breeze, 

 which under the influence of the sun's rays blows from the 

 water upon the land in the day-time, and in the night sub- 

 sides, and yields to a counter current from the land to the 

 water. These breezes operate upon the water, which is thus 

 impelled to and from the land. The effect is what is called 

 the lake tide. 



" In the Bay of Quinte the ebbing and flowing are very con- 

 siderable, but various, in consequence of the swells )iroduced 

 by different winds in the open lake. At the mouth of the 

 Nappannee river, they frequently make a difference of twelve 

 or fourteen inches in the depth of the water, and boats and 

 small craft, passing to and from the mills, conform to the al- 

 ternate influx and reflux, which succeed each other several 

 times in a day. A person residing in the neighbourhood told 

 me, that in general the tide of Nappannee took about fifty mi- 

 nutes to flow, and a hundred minutes to ebb, and that the rise 

 varied from fourteen to seventeen inches*." In connection with 

 this subject Mr. Gourlay adds, what I have observed myself, 

 that at Queenston Wharf, on the riverNiagara, there is a con- 

 stant ebbing and flowing of one foot in a minute. 



" At the Whirlpool, there is a tide of three feet every four 

 or five minutes on the west side of the pool." A mile below 

 this last place, at the old mill, I remarked a flux and reflux of 

 a foot every three or four minutes ; and on the same side of 

 the basin, below the Falls, there is a similar rise and fall in the 

 eddy, which is always running upwards in-shore. In these 

 cases, 1 believe the local accumulations and subsidences of 

 water to arise from the form of the bed and banks of the river. 



* Gourlay: Statistical Account of Upper Canada, vol. i. pp. 115, 26S>. 

 I also visited the Nap[)annee, and derived the same information from tlie 

 occupant of the mills, a-> is inserted in the text. It was only fair to Mr. 

 Gourlay, as the first reporter, to make use of his words, 



