Submerged Valleys in Sandusky Bay 



399 



rain fell as in the fourteen months be- 

 ginning January, 1901. Examination 

 of Weather Bureau records since the 

 establishment of stations at upper lake 

 ports shows that unusually high water 

 in Lake Erie has been preceded by pe- 

 riods of unusually heavy rains. 



If, however, considerable periods of 

 time are considered, there is abundant 

 evidence. to show that the lake is deep- 

 ening instead of getting shallower, as 

 limited observation has seemed to indi- 

 cate ; nor is the process too slow to be 

 noticed in a lifetime. Old men who 

 were living only a few years ago at 

 Put-in-Bay, Port Clinton, and San- 

 dusky could remember that when they 

 were bovs there was little or no water 



formed only in the air, may be seen 

 several feet below the present lake level, 

 where they are being slowly dissolved. 



If we look for a cause of this deep- 

 ening of the lake, it is to be found in a 

 slow tilting of the earth's crust in the 

 Great Lake region. 



The old beaches so much utilized for 

 roads in northern Ohio and farther east 

 are roughly parallel with the south 

 shore of Lake Erie, but several miles 

 away from it. They were formed at 

 the margins of glacial lakes whose 

 waters, being confined by the ice on 

 the north and northeast, found an out- 

 let to the Mississippi, first at Fort 

 Wayne, Indiana, and later at different 

 places across Michigan, the different 



WAT ER LEVELL 



Figure 1. — East and West Section — One Mile Long 



where it has since been several feet 

 •deep. Testimony of many witnesses 

 in a lawsuit at Sandusky in 1844 showed 

 that east of the city the water had been 

 deepening since about 1S23. Gauge 

 readings at Erie and elsewhere show 

 that at several times in the first half of 

 the nineteenth century the water was 

 lower than it has ever been since, and 

 in the first quarter of the century con- 

 siderably lower than in the second 

 quarter. The high water of 1 858-' 60 

 killed many trees that stood on the 

 border of marshes connected with the 

 lake. Hickory, walnut, elm, and syca- 

 more of large size and probably more 

 than 200 years old were killed at this 

 time by high water keeping the ground 

 too wet around their roots. Stumps 

 are still standing with roots in place, 

 their tops now below the level of the 

 lake. In the caves of Put-in-Bay sta- 

 lagmites and stalactites, which can be 



beaches corresponding to the different 

 levels of the outlets. Each beach at 

 the time of its formation was approxi- 

 mately level, being formed at the margin 

 of a lake. Now, however, they show 

 a rise as they are traced eastward. The 

 Forest beach, upon which Euclid Ave- 

 nue, Cleveland, is laid out, is the lowest 

 and most recent of these beaches. ' 'At 

 Crittenden, N. Y., it is 168 feet higher 

 than at Cleveland."* This shows a 

 rise of the whole region to the east as 

 compared with that to the west, involv- 

 ing a rise of the outlet of Lake Erie as 

 compared with the rest of the lake and 

 causing a deepening of the water, espe- 

 cially at its western end. 



Examination of the lake beaches 

 does not show whether the tilting of 

 the earth's crust is still going on or 

 ceased centuries ago. By comparing 



* Leverett. 



