168 Major Lachlan on the Rise and Fall of the Lakes. 
“The general belief among navigators and residents on the 
Lakes appears to be uniform against the existence of any law by 
which these fluctuations are governed or may be predicted. The 
scanty information collected tends to the conclusion that these 
general elevations and depressions are fortuitous, and the result of 
accidental disorder in the seasons throughout the Lake country. 
It is, however, well established that there zs in Lake Erie an an- 
nual tide, independent of the general state* of the water, which 
rises from eight to fifteen inches in the mean. The minimum 
occurs about the time of the breaking up of the ice, late in winter. 
and the maximum late in spring or early in summer and fall. In 
the winter less change is perceptible; but early in spring it rises 
very fast, and with great regularity, till it reaches the maximum. 
All measurements should be taken subject to this change; but I 
am unable to fixa mean surface for the year, or to give a probable 
at ee e geographical position of Lake Erie in refer- 
ence to the prevailing winds is the cause of irregularities in the 
annual rise and fall of the waters. Its general course elng 
northeast and southwest, discharging at the north, the steady 
west wind of the fall accelerates the flow of water from this Lake, 
at the same time retarding its supply from the other lakes. 
“It has been asserted that there exists in the Lakes, as in the 
Ocean, a daily or Zunar tide. Whether it is true when applied to 
uron, Ontario, or other lakes, ts not perhaps entirely settled. 
The observations I have been enabled to make on Lake Erie, and 
tion, that there is no tide upon Lake Erie. 
t will be perceived that I already happen to possess more ac- 
cumulated information on the vicissitudes of Lake Erie, to which 
my own attention and reflections had been more particularly di- 
rected, than of all the rest of our great Mediterranean seas put 
together; and I have now the additional satisfaction of turning 
to the investigations of my more immediate neighbors, the State 
Geologists of Michigan, and more especially of their talented 
chief, the lamented late Dr. Houghton, and his able assistant and 
topographer, Mr. Higgins. 
From the first Report of the former, however, I can only ven- 
ture to point to the following naked paragraphs, on the change © 
elevation in the waters of the Lakes, as equally applicable to Can- 
ada and to the American States.+ 
* Stagé is the word used, meaning “level,” I presume—k. t. 
+ See Geological Report of Michigan for 1839, p. 20 to 22. 
