The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1900-07-04
LEVEL OF THE GREAT LAKES.
Unexplained Rise and Fall of the
Waters of the Inland Sens.


Waters of the Inland Sens.
From the Chicago Inter-Ocean.
Among old sailors and engineers VINO
have studied Lake Michigan for fifty
years. Capt. Keiths discovery that the
drainage canal has lowered the lake level
five inches does not produce much con
sternation. Lake Michigan, like all OF the
great lakes, is a mystery. Old sea-
men recall the fact that Lake Michigan
once rose up bodily seven feet in an hour
along this coast. In 1856 it fell three feet
in two hours. There was a great tidal
wave in Lake Erie in 1S43 at Buffalo,
which drowned twenty people in their
beds.
So strange and unaccountable are the
fluctuations in the levels of all the great
lakes that sailors have an abiding faith
in "Old Sub" the underground monster
who turns the water off and on in sub
terranean passage under the lake.
"Old Subs tinkerin' with the stop
cocks" say the seamen when the water
begins to creep up on the gauge. Some
times the level goes lower and lower, and
then the talk is that "Old Sub has taken
to drink"
Some believe that great undiscovered
passage exists between the great lakes
and body of open water about the North
Pole and that a disturbance there ac-
counts for the wonderful ebb and flow of
the water in the basin of the great lakes.
Occasionally on a trip to Waukegan some
sailor announces that the boat passed
over the very region where "Old Sub" is
turning the water In, ice cold and in I'M
limited supply. In a little different way
scientists have sometimes upheld the the
DRY of a subterranean passage which feeds
the lakes, and cite the seven years rise
and fall of lake levels as a proof of 1t.
Others take no stock in the theory of pc
riodical movements.
But through it all there is the mystery
which has not been fathomed yet by any
plummet or measured by the rise and fall
of any barometer Long before the open
ing of the drainage canal a variation of
five inches IN the lake level was known TO
be an ordinary affair Sometimes the va
Ration can be accounted for, but more
often il cannot. Scientific men are as much
al a loss as the veriest old salt.
Day in and day out the lake level
changes aside from those caused by the
winds. No man knows why and no man
can reckon the times and the places of
these lake tides" So constant are the
fluctuations that a general fall OF three
inches year over the entire surface of
Lake Michigan and Lake Huron would
not be appreciate in the ordinary set OF
gauge readings The automatic gauge
shows an oscillation OF the lake every
twenty minutes, amounting sometimes TO
between two and three feet. In 1886,
after the water had run down suddenly
six feet in Chicago harbor, an attempt
was made to account for these oscilla-
lions on a scientific basis. Seven gauges
were set about the lake and read at Ave
minute intervals. The upshot of II was
that some Of the observers decided that
the phenomenon was due to a swing OF
the lake in its bed from shore to shore
Others did not think this reasonable but
had no better theory 10 advance. More re-
markable still. IL was found that one
days observation showed a general low
ering over the whole Of Lake Michigan
of several inches.
AS early at 1873 Father Marquette took
note Of changes in the lake levels. He
asked the Indians about It. and they said
that Lake Michigan swung from high
TO low and back again in fourteen years,