Sandusky Bay and Cedar Point 221 



and its irregularities are due, in part at least, to the surface of 

 the underlying clay which had been modified by subaerial 

 erosion when Lake Erie was yet at a distance. This erosion, 

 moreover, must have been held in check in so level a region by 

 the proximity of the underlying rock which in parts of Biemiller's 

 Cove is less than 12 feet below the mean lake level of recent years. 



Biemiller's Cove. 



Biemiller's Cove does not represent a valley in the clay but 

 the crest. At one point the clay was found immediately under 

 the ice and extending down to rock less than nine feet lower. At 

 another point it was less than three feet from the surface. About 

 sixty rods from the north end the clay is covered with some ten 

 feet of muck. Several centuries ago, before the lake had attained 

 its present level sand and gravel were piled up along the northeast 

 shore of this land and the bay formed smaller deposits on the 

 southwest shore. In time the water became high enough to 

 cover most of the land between these deposits, forming a marsh 

 both margins of which have since been covered by the sand. 

 Near the cove and northwest of the Lake Laboratory the roots 

 of large trees and an old cedar stump still retain about the same 

 relation to the surface as when the trees started two or three 

 centuries ago. A scow run ashore south of the Lake Laboratory 

 about 1881 shows no appreciable change in the shore since that 

 time. But in driving pipes for the Laboratory well, 1903, Mr. 

 Appell found that after the point was down 42 or 14 feet below 

 the surface of the ground, it drOve the next 18 inches or so very 

 easily, and after that hard again. When the point was in the 

 part where it went down so easily he pumped up water that was 

 dark colored, containing fibers as if from a marsh or bog. How 

 much farther east this marsh extended I do not know. On the 

 other side of the cove just inside of the bar and nearer the head 

 than the mouth of the cove I found beneath a few inches of 

 marsh at the surface some three or four feet of gravel and 

 beneath that about four feet of muck. This narrow part of the 

 peninsula that shuts in Biemiller's Cove appears to be a wave 

 built bar connecting the wider part toward the end with the 

 land at the head of the cove. In the wide part the clay must be 

 near the surface; at least I have found it near the surface at 

 several points in the bay not far away and inside the cove a short 

 distance from it. 



The terminal portion of this peninsula has been built up by 

 the bay in recent years; it appears to have extended about 18 

 rods in 1904 and double that amount since the survey made by 

 the War Department in 1872. In the survey of 1826, however, 



