Names of 
seas and 
lakes, 
CHAPTER IX 
STILL WATERS 
Aumost any sheet of enclosed water is a sea, 
a lake, or a pond, as the dwellers beside it 
choose to name it. The nomenclature, as ap- 
plied, is often very misleading. Thus, for in- 
stance, we have the term ‘Sea of Galilee” 
applied to a lake fifteen miles long by eight 
miles broad, whereas ‘‘ Lake Superior” desig- 
nates an inland sea covering an area of thirty-two 
thousand square miles, and having no more the 
characteristics of a lake than Galilee has of a 
sea. Any body of water, no matter whether fresh 
or salt, where we are at any time out of sight 
of land, or have a water-line for a horizon, has 
at least one strong feature of the ocean—immen- 
sity. The great American lakes, as we stand up- 
ou their shores, stretch out to the horizon-rim 
without a break, and we have small reason to 
suppose we are not on the New England coast 
looking over the Atlantic toward Europe. True 
enough, these great lakes have a different smell, 
174 
