136 



UNITED STATES. 



probable the rivers which flow into the west side^ 

 are as large, numerous, and extensive, as those on 

 the east. The waters, therefore, from which hike 

 Champlain is formed, seem to be collected from a 

 tract of Country of a larger extent, than the whole 

 state of Vermont. 



There are many marks and indications that the 

 surface of this lake, was formerly thirty or forty 

 feet higher than it is now. The rocks, in several 

 places, appear to be marked, and stained, with the 

 former surface of the lake, many feet higher than it 

 has been, from its first discovery by Sir Samuel 

 Champlain, in 1608. Fossil shells, the limbs and 

 bodies of trees, are frequently ionnd at the depth of 

 fifteen or twenty feet in the earth ; this is the case 

 not only along the shores, but in the low lands at 

 the distance of two or three miles from diem. The 

 soil in many places near the shore, is evidently of 

 the same factitious kind, as the intervals formed 

 by the rivers. These, and other circumstances, 

 have left no doubt on the mirjds of the inhabitants 

 along the lake shore, that the waters of it were for- 

 merly much higher, and spread to a much greater 

 extent, than they now are. 



The operations of nature with respect to the lake, 

 must have been the same that they were in relation 

 to the rivers. When the waters discharged by the 

 streams amounted to such a collection, as to rise 

 above the shores of the lake, they would overflow at 

 the lowest part. There, the channel would begin ; 

 and being formed, it w^ould become more and more 

 deep, in the same manner as the channel of a river. 

 The channel which this lake found, and formed, 



