The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1899-06-02
A FEW ODD ISLANDS.
DESCRIBED BY THE WAYNE COUNTY
(PA.) MAN.

They Float Around In n Careless Sort
Of Fashion, With an Occasional
Queer Freak, One Being to Spin
Around Like a Monster Top.
81 read about the floating islands off
the mouth of the Mississippi the other
day" said the veracious man from
Honesdale, Pa. "That reminded me
that my own little old county can boast
a few islands of the sort. What county?
Wayne, young man. You'll find it on
the maps due north Of Pike county.
You city chaps have an idea that all of
northern Pennsylvania is Pike county
in expansion, but you were never so
much mistaken about anything in your
lives. Pike county is all very well in
it's way, but its way run to fish liars
and r~attlesnakes. Now, Wayne has
none Of the latter, but of the former
well, talk about Pike county fishing!
Young fellow, Pike county isn't a
marker to Wayne when it comes to
downright, honest, clean cut piscatorial
sport. Pike may lie about it better, but
when you come to sift the facts from
the fiction before an investigating COM
mission you'll find that Wayne catches
the biggest trout and the fghtingest
bass every time, and don't you forget it.
"But I started to tell you about the
floating islands in the old county:
Way back in the twenties the Delaware
and Hudson Canal company gouged a
channel in the face of the earth from
Rondout to Honesdale and called it a
canal. For reservoirs and feeders to this
canal the level of ponds and lakes along
the route was raised by means Of dams
from 10 to 20 feet. While the dams
were in process of building the timber
about the ponds was felled up to the
artificial water line, and in many cases
really valuable lumber was left to decay
where it fell. These dead trunks formed,
when the water rose to it's newer level,
the basis Of these floating islands, which
may be found in so many of the lakes
of Wayne county. INTERVIEWING branch
es and twigs Of the trees themselves and
large quantities of underbrush served
to bind the logs together in something
like a solid mass, thereby forming RATS
of more or less %buoyancy and size. In
the course Of time water weeds of va
rious kinds attached themselves to the
raft, and eventually became a part of
it. Gradually a light, thin mold &C.
cumulated on the island, and in this
mold birds planted seeds and grain,
which, sprouting, growing and finally
dying and rotting, did their part in the
making of the whole. All of the larger
islands bear from one to a score of trees,
many of which have attained a consid-
cradle growth.
"You might suppose that to walk
upon or to fish from one of these islands
would be a source of some danger, but,
aside from an occasional wetting of the
feet no accidents from this cause have
ever occurred, so far as I have been able
to learn. The sensation produced by
walking on a floating island is very
similar to that which you and I have
both experienced when, as boys, we ran
on thin, young ice, or thicker old and
rotten ice. You remember how the ice
used to bend under your weight as you
ran across it, sometimes sinking nearly
a foot and then with the next step ris-
ing to meet you, possibly throwing you
and perhaps giving you a ducking?
Well, it's the same way with the float
ing islands, but with the element of
danger eliminated. It has the same fas-
cination.
"Strange as it may seem, very few of
these floating islands have become per-
manently anchored to the bHtom of the
lakes. They are as nomadic and as un-
settled in their habits as the Arab.
They lack what we country people call
stick-to.itiveness They are the con-
trariest cusses that ever happened.
send one of them scooting from end
of the lake to the other and again you
couldn't bulge that same island with
a 100 ton, compound freight locomotive
and a political pull. Once thoroughly
domesticated, however, they make ex-
"cellent weather vanes, for they invaria-
bly, seek the lee shore of the lake.
II recall a peculiar thing that hap
pened years ago to the island in White
Oak pond, neal Aldenville, some eight
or nine miles to the north and west of
Honesdale. By the way, this particular
island is the largest of the lot; so large,
in fact, that the center rises fully ten
feet above the water line. The farmer
owning this island proposed erecting a
summer house on the elevation, but
was obliged to give it up owing to his
inability to lay a proper foundation
without driving piles, and to do that
would result in mailing the island to
the bottom.
"Well, as l was going to say, this is
land one day eloped with a southwest
zephyr, which promptly deserted as
soon as it had got it's consort into the
middle of the lake. There it floated in
a sultry summer sun, with no means of
motion in itself and milking time ap-
preaching. Presently the edge of a lit