Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-09-16
WATERBURY, CONN. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER
WONDERFUL cAJAH POND.
1t Is Full of Floating Islands from Which
 Eishermen Troll for PfckercI.

Fishermen Troll for Pickercl.
 A dispatch in Q New York paper from a place in Minnesota, announcing as remark able fact the discovery of Q floating island in small lake in that State, inclines the residents of Honesdale, Pa, to the belief that if one floating island in a State so famous for natural curiosities as Minnesota is considered lavender, they have been liv- Ing all their lives with still greater wonder close by without attaching any great impor- tancc to it They have a lake q milo from Honesdale which is filled with Eoating islands. This lake is known locally us Cajah pond. It is two hundred feet above the village. It is dotted with dozen or more islands. These are covered with trees, some of them twenty feet high, and dense growth of thick -foliaged bushes.
 The island bottoms are marshy, but the soil is stif enough to sustain easily the weight of the fishermen who troll for pick erel from the islands in the summer fishing season. In the summer these little islands are pleasing variations in the beauty of the scene the lake presents to the spectator as he gazes upon it from the hills that encircle it. 1.-the wind happens to be strong and variable, as it generally is on the lake, the visitor who looks upon the lake for the first time can hardly help being startled to see these islands moving about from one point of the compass to another as the wind shifts. On one day these islands may be seen huddled together in one spot, and on another day, perhaps, they will be seen scattered widely apart. An island from which the fisherman casts his line at one end of the lake to-day will, in all probabil- ity, invite him to it from the other extremity tomorrow.
 The largest of these islands was some years ago partial to the lower end of the lake, and hugged the shore there with only slight changes in position day in and day out. During a stiff wind one day this island tackled first to one side and then to tho other side of the lake, moving slowly the while to the upper end, until it was floated against the shore at that end. It remained there for two or three years through some of the hardest winds that blew of that shore. One day while three pickerel fishermen were fishing from the islands outer edge 1t sud denly was seized with a whim, induced or prompted only by gentle wind, and before the fishermen knew it they found them selves fifty feet from shore. The island f1oated slowly across the lake until it had almost reached that shore, when 0 counter breeze struck it and sent it down the lake. It finally landed near the spot where it started from year ago, and it has remained in that vicinity ever since, simply taking a short trip now and then to and fro across the lake, but always returning to or near it's old moorings.
 Although these fair islands are constantly shifting their places in the lake, they an- nually add perceptibly to their area. There are six or eight of them, and the scientific theory is that in time the roots of the trees that cover them will extend down into the water so far that they will anchor tho islands in the lake, and that by the slow but certain processes of nature they will be in- creased in size until the surface of the lake will become sohd land