180 Ohio State Academy of Science 



the decade or generation or century surpasses the combined 

 effect of all minor floods. In littoral transportation the great 

 storm bears the same relation to the minor storm and to the 

 fair weather breeze. The waves created by the great storm not 

 only lift more detritus from each unit of the littoral zone, but 

 they act upon a broader zone, and they are competent to move 

 larger masses. The currents which accompany them are cor- 

 respondingly rapid and carry forward the augmented shore drift 

 at an accelerated rate." — Gilbert. 



The greatest storms of the past century or those which were 

 most effective because occurring at time of highest water were 

 those of 1857-1862. 



The water covered the land where the Sandusky Tool 

 Factory stands and the street adjacent so that the workmen went 

 to the building, then a saw mill, in row boats. It flooded the 

 cellars on the south side of Railroad Street. The part of the city 

 near the end of First Street and east of it was under water. These 

 storms damaged the bridge across Sandusky Bay and the rail- 

 road near Port Clinton. Along miles and miles of shore and over 

 hundreds of acres of lowland they killed trees that had stood for 

 centuries. They cut away large slices of Eagle Island at the 

 head of the bay and the last remnant of Spit Island at the mouth 

 of the bay. They cut through the land west of Port Clinton 

 giving an outlet for the Portage River about one-fourth mile 

 farther west than before, but the breach was afterwards closed 

 by the L. S. & M. S. R. R. Co. They built up on the northeast 

 shore of Cedar Point long sand ridges twelve feet high on which 

 hundreds of cottonwoods have since grown to a height of fifty or 

 sixty feet. 



The preceding statements may suffice to illustrate the sort 

 of changes effected by northeast gales but those who have seen 

 Lake Erie only when it is calm or stirred by winds of moderate 

 force will be further impressed with its power by a brief notice of 

 particular storms which are remembered by old residents or 

 noted in the journal of the weather observer. 



The northeast storms of 1857-1862 are said to haye been 

 more frequent and usually of longer duration than those of late 

 years. Regarding this point a number of old residents agree 

 and they are probably not mistaken, for the records of rainfall at. 

 the stations in this part of the country where records were kept 

 so early show that the precipitation of 1857 and 1858 has not 

 been equalled since. 



Captain Freyensee and Mr. Haas, then in charge of the 

 Swan, are sure that the water became exceedingly high in 

 August, 1857, during a thunderstorm accompanied by a violent 



