The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-04-07
LAKE SUPERIOR.
Facts About the Largest
Body OF Fresh Water in the " orId.

The Great Lakes" is the title of an
article in March st. Nicholas, written
by w. $. Harwood. Concerning Lake
Superior. Mr.. Harwood says: 1t is, to
begin with, the largest body of fresh
water in the world. 1t is water of
wonderful purity which it holds, too:
and some time-and in the not very
distant future, either-the people who
live in the large cities to the west and
south will come to this lake to get the
water for their homes. 1t will not he
so remarkable an engineering feat to
pipe the water of this lake, pure and
sparkling and fresh from its cold
depths, to these cities which are now
struggling with the question of their
water supply, and meeting all sorts of
difficulties in their efforts to get water
fit to drink.
All down through this thousand feet
of blue there is a peculiar coldness. At
the very most, the temperature varies
through winter and summer not more
than six degrees. Winter and summer,
this great lake never changes to any
appreciable extent, so that if you dip
your finger tips in the blue surface on
a day in July, or If you test it some
day in early winter when you have
been out on some belated, ice-mailed
fishing or when you have gone
out to watch the fishermen spearing
their supplies through the thick ice in
mid-January, you will find but a trif-
ling difference in the temperature.
Away down at the bottom, too, there
is but little variation in the tempera-
ture, for it stands at nearly forty de-
grees Fahrenheit at the bottom, and
varies from forty to forty-siX degrees,
winter and summer, at the surface.
The other lakes, though cold, are not
in this respect like Superior.
The whole bottom of the lake is be-
lieVed to be strong rock basin, though
ii would seem that there must be great
springs at the bottom to help keep up
the enormous volume of water. From
the north there is large amount of
water pouring into the lake year in and
year out; the swift-rushing. narrow
banked Nipigon and other streams fur
nishing no small part of the supply.
These streams in a large measure make
up the loss from the surface. One of
the old lake captains a bronzed. kind
ly-faced man who had been for thirty
five years on the lakes, and had faced
death many a time in the frightful
storms which sometimes sweep across
these beautiful bodies of water, told
me, as we We're passing along one day
near the north coast of Superior. with
the headlands and inlets and glossy
green bluffs of that most picturesque
shore in full view, that the theory that
the lake was slowly going down in
could tell from certain landmarks along
the shores, with which he is as fami-
liar as he would be with the streets of
his old Scottish birthplace, that the lake
was sluwly-very slowly-but surely
receding. However, it will be some
centuries yet before there will be any
appreciable lessening Of the Great
Lakes, 80 that we need not be con-
cerned.
Strange as it may seem, the lake has
tides, too, well-defined tides, discovered
in 1860. 1t is what is called a self
registering tide, with "A regular tluX
and refuX wave, caused, so the scien-
tifc men say, by the sun and moon.
The average rise and fall every twenty
four hours is one fourteen hundredth
of foot; the maximum tide at new
and full moon is one twenty -eight-hun-
dredth of a foot.
Another very interesting. and very
sad, thing about this lake is that il
never gives up its dead. Whoever en-
counters terrible dsaster-happily in
frequent i'm the tourist season--and
goes down in the angry, beautiful blue
waters, never comes up again. From
those earliest days when the daring
French voyagers in their trim birch
bark canoes skirted the picturesque
shores of this noble but relentless lake.
down To this present moment, those
who have met their deaths in mid-Su-
perior still lie at the stone paved bot
tom. 1t may be that, so very cold is
the water, some of their bodies may
have been preserved through the CEN
turtles, Sometimes, not far from the
shore. the bodies of people who have
h"on wrecked from fishing smacks or
from pleasure boats overtaken by n
cruel squall have been recovered. but
only after the most heroic efforts with
dTag-net or bV tho diver