An Ecological Study of Buckeye Lake. 13 



superposed on a composite of the survey made recently by the 

 Canal Commission and one made during the summer of '09 by the 

 Civil Engineering Department of the Ohio State University. The 

 map of the recent surveys is drawn with unbroken and that of 

 1799 with broken lines. As the water at the standard level is 

 about nine feet higher than that of the original swamp, the reser- 

 voir naturally extended farther than the old swamp in those 

 directions where the spreading waters were not checked by a 

 levee or by natural banks ; as for example, toward the southwest, 

 south and southeast, where low lands bordered the swamp ; and 

 toward the north a long irregular arm of the reservoir extends 

 up a low valley. On the north side a part of the old swamp was 

 cut ofif by the embankment. A comparison of the superposed 

 areas will show this better than it can be stated in words. 



The old lake is represented as a long, narrow ditch with 

 very regular banks. This regular outline seems impossible when 

 one considers the nature of the surrounding land. In the report 

 of the surveys, the swamp is frequently written of as impassable, 

 so the map of the lake is therefore very likely not from an 

 actual survey. Moreover the Indians and early settlers called 

 the waters "Two Lakes" or "Big and Little Lake" indicating the 

 presence of two bodies of water in place of one. 



Altho the present lake and its predecessor the "Big Swamp," 

 are distinctly post-glacial and occupy a long shallow kettle in 

 the surface of the upper drift sheet, the basin was a part of the 

 pre-glacial Newark River valley. A probable branch of the 

 Newark River flowed in the valley now occupied by Jonathan 

 Creek, ^' was continuous with the Buckeye Lake basin, and joined 

 the Newark River ^ mile southwest of the present site of the 

 waste weir. There is no evidence that Buckeye Lake was a part 

 of a large post-glacial lake of long duration. The melting of so 

 vast an area of ice caused of course a great sheet of water which, 

 however, could not have endured for a great length of time as 

 there is no evidence of lake sands, clays or beaches and as there 

 seems to be conclusive evidence that there was one and probably 

 two drainage channels. Licking River*' and Jonathan Creek, open 



