Sandusky Bay and Cedar Point 201 



Sandusky River. 



I have not tested the bottom of the bay farther west than 

 Danbury, 82 degrees, 50 minutes west longitude, but Adam 

 Hayder in driving stakes for fish-nets has noticed a zone of deep 

 mud extending from Eagle Island to the Bay Bridge. Into this 

 he drives the stakes six feet and then does not know that they 

 touch clay. This belt of deep mud is as wide as the length of 

 eight leaders, 35 rods each, and the northern margin of it is 

 about this distance, seven-eighths of a mile, from the shore at 

 the Plaster Beds and as much as a mile at the Port Clinton 

 road. From the south side of this belt of mud on the meridian 

 of Port Clinton hardpan extends toward Willow Point. Off 

 Willow Point for the length of six leaders, stakes will hold, but 

 the next six lengths stakes do not hold, the blue clay or hardpan 

 being too hard. 



I found no place near the bay bridge where the hard bottom 

 was quite thirty feet below the ice. It is not likely that any- 

 where farther west the river ever cut much deeper than this, for 

 in the portions of the bay bridge where piles were driven the 

 rock is nowhere much more than thirty feet below mean lake 

 level. Nor does the valley deepen appreciably for about three 

 miles east of the drawbridge. South and southwest of John- 

 son's Island a depth exceeding thirty feet was found in quite a 

 number of places. Here the river received several tributaries 

 and its valley is probably considerably deeper than farther west. 

 The borings do not show any tributaries farther west and it is 

 not likely that any important ones existed between the bay 

 bridge and the vicinity of Johnson's Island. Among the old 

 dismantled range lights southeast of Johnson's Island the hard 

 bottom is at least forty feet below mean lake level and may be 

 considerably more than this. The greater part of a day was 

 spent in attempting to trace the valley farther east but deep 

 sand prevented reaching the clay except in a few places. The 

 deep water off the end of Cedar Paint and in 1842 a deep depres- 

 sion between the end of Cedar Point and the dismantled range 

 lights, with glacial clay only 20 feet below lake level a short dis- 

 tance to the south and to the north, show that the Sandusky 

 River once flowed where steamers now pass in and out of the bay. 



Tributaries to the Sandusky River. 



Lines of borings across the bay indicate the course, though 

 they do not show in detail, the submerged valley of Meadow 

 Brook which now enters the bay west of Hartshorn's dock on 

 the Peninsula, and a stream now entering the bay east of Bay 



