Major Lachian on the Rise and Fall of the Lakes. 51 
With respect to the 3d debatable question—the daily oscilla- 
tions or other irregular transient tides observable in the different 
Lakes; | may observe that, making allowance for a greater or less 
degree of — pressure, I might perhaps be disposed to 
assent in few words to the now generally received opinion, that 
in other ier they may be ascribed to the influence of the pre- 
vailing winds upon their broad expanse, more or less modified. by 
their peculiar form and direction, and the relative bearing and na- 
ture of their extremities, ag well as by the often very Jagged and 
irregular outline of particular inlets or bays, and other inter-penin- — 
sular localities, such as Kewenaw Bay on Lake Superior, Green 
Bay on Lake Michigan, Bayer G Isle Peninsula and Long Point 
on Lake Erie, and th th of Quinté on Lake Ontario. But it 
seems to me that in so a I would be conceding too much, as, in 
my humble unscientific apprenension, I am disposed to think that 
though such may be the case to a general extent, it is not the 
less necessary to prove, by a long and regular course of minute 
observations, whether such be the fact or not, as well as how far 
the surface of such vast bodies of water may not at times be con- 
siderably influenced by ampbeie pressure on the one hand, or 
by lunar attraction on the other, giao at the times of th é 
is observable on the inland fresh-water lakes of Switzerland and 
elsewhere. In confirmation of this I would, as regards the lat- 
ter, beg to refer to the writings of Dr. Young, alluded to in an 
early part of these remarks, in conjunction with a valuable paper 
on the Lakes of Switzerland, by Colonel Jackson of the Royal 
Geographical Society, which lately appeared in the Canadian 
Journal, incorporated in a series of interesting articles on the va- 
riations in the level of the Canadian Lakes, from the pen of its 
learned editor, in which those oscillations (there termed seiches) 
are said to amount to no less than five feet. Nay, so interest- 
ingly appropriate to the present question do I regard a portion of 
the articie alluded to, that I am tempted, in spite of the already 
great length of this paper, to transcribe the following, as the con- 
clusion at which a learned German Professor has arrived on the 
happen at all seasons of ae Sone r and at all hours of the day; but 
that they are generally most severe in the spring and in the au- 
tumn. 3d. That the sate of the atmosphere seems to have a 
decided influence, it being remarked, that in proportion as that 
state is less changeable, so are the Seiches less frequent, and vice 
Me ae 
