The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-28
LAKE ERIE CUTTING UP DIDOES.
Proposed Dam to Deepen the Water
That Would Harm Niagara Falls.

Proposed Dam to Deepen the Water
That Would Harm Niagara Falls.
Lake Erie has been cutting up all kinds
OF pranks the past summer, according to a
Cleveland dispatch in the Washington
Sun. So tickle has this shallow body of
water become that those most interested
think it time to restrain the most treach-
erous of the unsalted seas" Never has
the water in the lake been so low as this
year. From Buffalo to the mouth OF the
Raisin River shoals and reefs have been
out of water which had been hidden since
white men first came to these parts.
Old lake observers have asserted that the
water of the lake f1uctuates in periods of
seven years. This, they maintain, is the
seventh year, and the water is at the
lowest point. From now, for three years
and half, the water will increase in
depth. At the expiration Of that time it
will be at the maximum and then will de-
crease until the period of seven years is at
an end.
The water is now on the average about
four feet lower than it has been since 1891,
Vessels going in and out of the harbors at
Cleveland, SaEdusky, Toledo and other
points where rivers flow into the lake and
bring with them more or less discharge
have grounded, and considerable loss has
resulted to their owners because of the
able to carry full cargoes because they
could not make the Lake Erie harbor to
which they were consigned.
WindstormS have caused great huctu-
tons in the depth of the lake. On the
night of November % a tremendous gale
swept these parts. 1t piled the water up
at the east end of the lake. 1t lowered the
Of I,a
about three feet. At Sandusky it blew 50
hard that a portion OF the bar, generally
covered with eight or ten feet of water,
was dry. At Toledo the force of the wind
carried so much water out OF the Maumee
River than many vessels went aground.
Not far from Cleveland on the evening of
November % a wel-known doctor of North
ern Ohio watered his horse at the shore of
the lake.
The next morning he started from the
point where he had watered the animal on
the preceding evening and walked directly
toward the center OF the lake slxty-four
PAGES, equal to 1872 feet, without getting
his feet wet. Before night of the same day
the water had returned and was nearer the
shore than before. 1t made him think of
the Bible story of Pharoah's army and the
Red Sea. The same windstorm exposed
some of the reefs near the islands, and yes
seis went hard on the rocks where ordina-
rily there should have been sufficient
water.
A lake that cuts up didoes OF this kind
is not esteemed by those who cruise upon
it in great ships and the lake carriers are
beginning to devise schemes to prevent
some of these disturbances. One of the
plans proposed is to build a dam across
the Niagara River. Colonel Jared A.
Smith, the United States engineer at this
point, says the plan is perfectly feasible,
and sees no reason why the flow at Niagara
might not be checked for the benefit of
the commerce of the lakes.
Vessel owners are besieging Congress an
nually for a twenty-foot channel from one
end of the great lake highway TO the other,
which is surely needed, but twenty-foot
channel will be of little avail if Lake Erie
is going to shift it's depth as often as
woman changes costumes at fashionable
resort. Colonel Smith says there are no
engineering obstacles in the way of Mia