372 REED-WRIGHT— THE VERTEBRATES OF [October i, 



from the source of Butler Creek southward to the source of the 

 Cayuga inlet near North Spencer. The width gradually increases 

 from 12 miles at Montezuma to Taughannock Falls, where it sud- 

 denly broadens to about 30 miles because of a finger-like extension 

 along the course of Fall Creek. 



The length of the lake is usually estimated at thirty-eight miles, its breadth 

 from one and a half to three miles. In appearance, therefore, it resembles 

 a great river; indeed it is said to occupy a part of a preglacial river channel 

 of which the Neguaena' valley was the continuation. The height of the lake 

 above mean tide is 383^ feet, the greatest depth found by numerous soundings 

 of the Cornell University Engineering Department was 435 feet at a point 

 directly off Kidder's Ferry. In the section between Myers Point and Sheldrake 

 Point it is in many places over 400 feet deep. On account of its depth its 

 waters are comparatively cold far into the summer, and rarely become so 

 chilled in winter as to admit of the formation of ice over the deeper sections. 

 From one half to two thirds of the middle section usually remains open, but 

 in the winter of 1884-5 the lake was frozen over before the middle of Feb- 

 ruary and the ice did not break up till the first week in April. There is a 

 tradition that this occurs about once in twenty years (Dudley).' 



Data collected from various sources show that this tradition has 

 some foundation in fact. Since the beginning of white settlements 

 in this basin, soon after the Revolutionary War, the lake has frozen 

 over seven times and the intervals have been, with one exception, 

 from eighteen to twenty years. During the winter of 1836, ice cov- 

 ered the lake throughout its extent but was apparently very thin, 

 for in an article under the caption " Cayuga "* written in 1846 the 

 writer observed that this condition lasted for a day or two only. 

 Prior to 1836, the lake had been frozen twice but nothing is known 

 concerning the dates further than that the intervals were about 

 twenty years — probably about 1816 and 1796. During March and 

 April, 1856, ice ten inches thick closed the entire lake. At many 

 points teams were driven across. The Ithaca Weekly Journal of 

 March 12, 1856, contains the following note: 



Cayuga Lake is frozen over completely from one extreme to the other. 

 The like has not been known for over twenty years (1836) : 



^ Now called the Inlet valley. 



^The average level as given by the U. S. Geological Survey is 381 feet. 



^ Dudley, William R., " The Cayuga Flora, Part I. : A Catalogue of the 

 Phsenogamia Growing without Cultivation in the Cayuga Lake Basin," Bul- 

 letin of the Cornell University (Science), Vol. II., 1886, Andrus and Church. 

 Ithaca, N. Y. 



*' Ithaca Daily Chronicle, Dec. 22, 1846, Vol. I., no. 140. 



