CLINTON ON THE GREAT LAKES. 27 
other large invasated waters, has a small rising and falling of the water, like 
tides, some twelve or eighteen inches perpendicular.”’ 
These are the only authorities of an old date to which I have had access. 
Those which I now refer to are of recent observation, and some are derived 
from oral communication. Mr. Benjamin Wright, a very judicious and 
intelligent gentleman, and one of the principal engineers on the Western 
Canal, informs me, that at a place called Mexico, about twenty miles from 
Oswego, Lake Ontario ebbs and flows every hour and a half about six inches, 
and that the flood is highest when the wind is from the shore. 
A gentleman of veracity and intelligence, who resides at the mouth of 
Genesee River, says that this Lake rises and falls four times each in every 
hour, whether there be a wind or not: that the smallest rise is four, and the 
highest twenty-eight inches, and that this occurs during a perfect calm. 
A similar appearance occurs on Lake Champlain. Captain Winans, one 
of the proprietors of the Steam Boats, who resides at Burlington, in Vermont, 
assures me that in summer, when there has been a perfect calm for several 
days, he has observed at that place a flux and reflux of the Lake four times 
every hour, with great regularity, and at every access rising four inclies, as 
was obvious from a mark made on a log. 
Captain Storrow, a gentleman of talents, says, in a printed letter to Ge- 
neral Brown, ‘“‘ while at Green Bay, 1 made observations on the ebb and flow 
of a Lake tide. At eleven o’clock A. M. I placed a stick perpendicularly 
in the water—at half past nine P. M. the water had risen five inches—at 
eight next morning it had fallen seven inches—at eight same evening it had 
risen eight inches. During this period the wind was in the same direction, 
blowing generally against the flow of the tide.” 
Judge Woodward, of Michigan, in a letter to Doctor Mitchill, states, that 
Mr. Benjamin F. Stickney, who resides on the Miami River of Lake Erie, 
some miles below the rapids, and a few miles from the mouth of the River, 
made observations on this subject for more than a fortnight, in June, 1820 ; 
the result of which is a conviction in his mind that there is a regular tide in 
Lake Erie—that it flows and ebbs twice in twenty-five hours, at intervals of 
about six hours and eleven minutes, and that it is greatest at the new and 
