May, 1912.] A Study of Buckeye Lake and Vicinity. 
5 2 1 
a tributary to this lake. Moreover this lake if not with a larger 
oulet than inflow of water must have existed for a long span of 
time and would have left unmistakable evidence of its presence in 
lake beaches, sands and clay deposited on its floor and deltas at 
the mouths of its tributaries. 
All the records of gas wells in this region, from which I was 
able to obtain details, show a thin mantle, in some wells but 8-10 
feet thick, of glacial clay overlying a heavy bed of gravel. In one 
such well close to the Baltimore and Ohio railroad tracks and 134 
miles north of the lake the gravel is but 2 feet below the surface 
and is 100 feet thick. In another well in the field west of the Ohio 
Electric railway and but a few rods from the north shore of the 
lake, there was, according to the foreman’s notes, 10 feet of loam 
and 350 feet of sand and gravel. All the water wells near Buckeye 
Lake are in the gravel. In one at the Glass Hotel on the north 
shore, sand was entered at 10 feet below the surface, and the well 
is in gravel at 75 feet. In some of these wells sand lies above the 
gravel and in others beneath it. This thick stratum of gravel was 
not deposited in the quiet waters of a lake. So massive, a load can 
only have been carried by the flood waters from a glacier. The 
gravel is evidently an outwash deposit. 
II. The physiographic history of Buckeye Lake. 
Buckeye Lake is situated in Licking, Fairfield and Perry 
counties, in Ranges 17 and 18, Townships 17, 18 and 19. It is a 
long irregular body of water with its longest diameter from east to 
west. It is approximately 7| miles long from the southeastern 
most extremity to the western and varies in width from 34 mile in 
the eastern portion to 134 miles at the extreme western end. The 
area covered is estimated at 4,200 acres. The lake is quite 
shallow; the water over large areas does not exceed a depth of 
6-8 feet at the normal water level; but there are a few deeper 
depressions. Soundings just off the south shore of Cranberry 
island revealed a depth of 15 feet, and near Avondale a depth of 
25 feet, which Mr. Bootin, the engineer of the Canal Commission 
assures me is the greatest depth he has found. 
This basin was built in 1832 to serve as a reservoir for the Ohio 
canal. On May 21, 1894, the General Assembly of Ohio passed 
an act reserving it for a public park and summer resort to be known 
as Buckeye Lake. 
The site of the reservoir was a more or less completely tree- 
covered impassable swamp, known to the Indians and early 
settlers as the “Big Swamp,” “Two Lakes” or “Big and Little 
Lake.” 7 It lay diagonally across the southeas: corner of Town- 
ship 17 and almost half across the southern border of Township 19. 
In shape and area it approximated the present lake. In the 
7. Graham, A. A. History of Licking County, O. Chap. XVII, p. 165. 1881. 
