Ecological Study of Brush Lake. 



GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE LAKE. 



BRUSH LAKE is situated in the north-east corner of 

 Champaign County, on the north side of the " Pan- 

 handle " Railway, at Brush Lake Station, about thirty- 

 five miles west of Columbus. It is a pond covering 

 about eleven acres, occupying a depression of the glacial deposit 

 which covers the entire region for miles around. This deposit 

 represents a moraine of recession and the surface is diversified by 

 hills and hollows, the district being one of the most beautiful in 

 central Ohio. In the neighborhood there are numerous small 

 swamps and ponds, some of which have been entirely filled up 

 with sediment from the surrounding banks and hills. It is said 

 that Brush Lake was formerly about eighty feet deep. If this is 

 true there has been a large amount of filling in recent times from 

 the adjoining cultivated hillsides ; for at present the water is not 

 over thirty-five feet deep in the deepest place. The elevation of 

 the surface of the lake is given as 1,120 feet above sea level. 



There is a small ravine opening into the lake at the north- 

 west and an outlet at the south-east from which water usually 

 flows, forming a small brook, except in very dry weather when 

 the loss from evaporation and other causes is greater than the 

 supply. The outlet seems to be eroded very slowly and the 

 decrease in the size of the lake due to this cause is at present 

 insignificant. The water supply comes from a small drainage 

 area and from springs which are evident on the west and north- 

 west sides. From wells drilled at Fountain Park, about one mile 

 south-east of the lake, it appears that the underlying rock is the 

 Cedarville Limestone, belonging to the Niagara formation. There 

 are several shallow artesian wells from this limestone at Fountain 

 Park, but whether any of this rock water comes up into Brush 

 Lake is not known. 



