Kindle — Note on Bottom Currents in Lake Ontario. 193 



bottom makes them competent to sort or transport recent sedi- 

 ments which would be unaffected by surface currents. The 

 bottom currents must differ chiefly in their activities as agents 

 of sedimentation from the persistent operations of tidal and 

 river currents in transporting materials, through lacking the 

 systematic cumulative effect which the latter produce. The 

 activities and results on sedimentation of the work of such cur- 

 rents must vary with the atmospheric conditions which produce 

 them. They represent in Lake Ontario, and doubtless in other 

 large bodies of inland waters, important factors in sedimenta- 

 tion concerning which we have but little recorded information. 

 The great strength sometimes displayed by these currents as com- 

 pared with surface and wind currents is illustrated by the case 

 of a yacht which overturned in a bay on the south shore of Lake 

 Ontario near Charlotte, 1ST. Y. and shifted cargo so that the 

 stern sank very low while the bow remained just out of water.* 

 This capsized yacht was observed to drift slowly directly toward 

 the wind during a heavy storm. The only systematic obser- 

 vations which have been made regarding these currents in 

 Lake Ontario relate to the waters of the lake near Toronto, 

 where Mr. L. J. Clarkef undertook to ascertain the direction of 

 local currents with reference to the location of sewers passing 

 into the lake and the position of an intake pipe for the city 

 water supply. In all of Clarke's observations, the currents 

 were found to be correlated with the winds but their directions 

 were often very different from those of the winds producing 

 them. He says : — "Thus northeast, east and southeast winds 

 pretty generally produce currents flowing southwest, while 

 south, southwest and west winds give northeasterly currents 

 and north and northwest winds give rise to variable currents. 

 On seven occasions when the wind was from the north and 

 northwest, the resulting currents were two northeast, three 

 southwest and two southeast. Also a southwest wind would 

 produce a northeast current south of the island and a north- 

 west one west of the island. The phenomenon of the current 

 being in a contrary direction to the wind was more marked in 

 Humber Bay than to the south of the island, although on one 

 occasion, on the seventeenth of July, we put out near Victoria 

 Park, first, a thirty-foot float ; second, a surface float without 

 flag or drag, a mere tin can with an iron rod, four feet in length, 

 attached ; and third, an empty tin can. The wind was fresh 

 from the east. The first and second floats went dead against 

 the wind, while the empty can was driven along before the wind 

 on the top of the waves. Close in shore we sometimes observed 

 the current in an opposite direction to that farther out." 



*L. J. Clarke, Currents in Lake Ontario, Trans. Can. Inst., vol. ii, pp. 

 156, 1890. 

 flbid. vol. ii, pp. 154-157, 1890 and vol. iii, pp. 275-281, 1891. 



