FORMER HIGHER LEVEL OF THE GREAT LAKES. 241 



CHAPTER XXII. 



FORMER HIGHER LEVEL OF THE GREAT LAKES. 



TN the spring of 1865, at the time of the memorable floods, 

 -■- I had occasion to pass over the Great Western Railway 

 from Suspension Bridge to Detroit. From Chatham to the 

 vicinity of Detroit this road runs within sight of Lake St. 

 Clair. On this occasion the country was submerged al- 

 most as far as the eye could reach in every direction. Our 

 engineer seemed to be practicing a new species of naviga- 

 tion — rather grallatorial than natatorial. The little lake 

 had become rampant. Outraged by the long encroach- 

 ments of the land, it had decided to assert again its an- 

 cient supremacy. Then I was reminded, if I had never 

 been before, how slight a rise in the lake would submerge 

 entire counties lying upon its borders. 



A large part of this Canadian peninsula is scarcely above 

 the ordinary level of the lakes. The whole region looks 

 like an ancient swale and a more ancient lake bottom. 

 The same is true of a considerable breadth on both sides 

 of Lake St. Clair and the Detroit and St. Clair Rivers. Lake 

 St. Clair itself — except when rampant — is little better than 

 a marsh with a river running through it. Among naviga- 

 tors it is the opprobrium of the lakes. One never ceases 

 to hear sailors talk about " the flats," and Congress never 

 ceases to be importuned to make another lake where Na- 

 ture is in the very act of blotting one out. If the reader 

 has ever taken a steam-boat trip through the lake, he could 

 not avoid discovering that it is the very similitude of os- 

 tentatious learning — "all breadth and no depth." The 



L 



