May, 1912.] A Study of Buckeye Lake and Vicinity. 
5 2 3 
who says: “The reservoir occupies a great kettle-hole, the rail- 
road which here cuts through the moraine follows for several miles 
towards the southeast an outlet for the glacial floods. ” 
The overflow channel is 900 feet above sea level, whereas the 
surface of the present lake is 892 feet. This eastern outlet could 
drain the lake only when the water surface exceeded the 900 foot 
level. During the time when the water stood at or slightly above 
the 900 foot level, the area covered was much greater than the 
present one. The broad plain to the north between the present 
lake and Newark is less than 900 feet, with small irregular isolated 
areas from 900 to 960 feet above sea level. It is 10 miles from 
north to south. At the southern limits of Newark it is 3 miles 
from east to west and 10 miles from east to west at the northern 
margin of Buckeye Lake. When therefore the ice receded from 
this plain the latter was covered by a body of water measuring 10 
miles rom north to south by 10 miles from east to west at the south- 
ern and 3 miles at the northern end. This lake, if lake it can be called, 
stood at or above the 900 foot level for so short an interval that 
careful search has disclosed no beaches, deltas, lake sands or clays. 
The soil in the fields south of Thornville station at the 920 foot 
contour line, contains some fine sand, it is fine grained sandy loam; 
and there is also sand in the banks of a small stream which flows 
north and enters the southwestern lobe of the lake at Thornville 
station. There is however so little sand that it certainly does not 
form a well defined beach. 
The water must have very soon drained away to the 
northeast and must have been in the nature of a broad river, 
rather than a lake over the plain southwest of Newark. 
The recession of the ice from this plain uncovered an outlet 
lower than the 900 foot level and the southeastern one at Thom- 
ville station was abandoned. This new outlet was not deep 
enough nor w th sufficient fall to completely drain the basin; for a 
long, narrow, irregular, typical finger lake, conforming in shape to 
the old river valley remained in the western portion of the pre- 
glacial valley of Jonathan creek. All of this lake but a narrow 
channel near the center had been reduced to a swamp by the close 
of the 18th century. 
That this swamp, which was known as the “Big Swamp,” 
dates from early post-Wisconsin time is shown by the presence of 
a cranberry-sphagnum bog wffiich still exists in Buckeye Lake. 
This bog, locally known as the Cranberry marsh, lies in the eastern 
part of the lake, close to and parallel with the north shore. It is 
3,250 feet from northeast to southwest by 750 feet from northwest 
to southeast, and has an approximate area of 45 acres, according 
to the survey made in the winter of 1910 by Professor Chamberlain 
of the Civil Engineering Department of the Ohio State University. 
