Evening star., 1900-07-07
LEVEL OF THE GREAT LAKES,

LEVEL OF THE GREAT LAKES.
Unexplained Rise and Fall Of the
Waters of the Island Seas.
From the Chicago Inter Ocean. Z
Among old sailors and engineers who
have studied Lake Michigan for fifty years,
Capt. Keith's discovery" that the drainage
canal has lowered the lake level five inches
does not produce much CONSERVATION. Lake
Michigan, like all of the great lakes, Is a
mystery. Old seamen recall the fact that
Lake Michigan once rose up bodily seven
feet in an hour along this coast. In 1856
1t 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.
30 strange and unaccountable are the
fluctuations in the levels Of all the great
lakes that sailors have an abiding faith in
'Oid SUBJ the underground monster who
turns the water off and on in subterran-
can passage under the lake.
'Old Subs tinkerin' with the stop cocks"
say the seamen when the water begins 10
creep up on the gauge. Sometimes the level
goes lower and lower. and then the talk is
that "Old Sub has taken to drink"
Some believe that q great undiscovered
passage exists between the great lakes and
body of open water about the north pole,
and that disturbance there accounts for
the wonderful ebb and flow of the water in
the basin Of the great lakes Occasionally
on a trip to Waukegan some sailor an
nounces that the boat passed over the very
region where ''Old Sub" is turning the
water in. ice cold and in unlimited supply.
In a little different way scientists have
sometimes upheld the theory of a subter-
ranean passage which feeds the lakes. and
cite the seven years rise and fall Of lake
levels a proof of 1t. Others take no
OF In Sc
ments.
But through 1t 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 opening
of the drainage canal a variation of five
inches In the lake level was known to be
an ordtrary affair. Sometimes the var!a-
tion can be accounted for, but more often
1t cannot. Scientific men are as much at q
loss 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 a year
over the entire surface OF Lake Michigan
and Lake Huron would not be appreciable
automatic gauge shows an oscillation of the
lake every twenty minutes. amounting
sometimes to between two and three feet.
In 1885, after the water had run down sud
tempt was made to account for these oscil-
lations on a scientific basis. Seven gauges
were set about the lake and read at five
minute intervals. The upshot Of 1t was
that some of the observers decided that the
pheLcmenon 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 to advance. More remarkable still.
1t was found that days observation
showed a general lowering over the whole
of Lake Michigan Of several inches.
As early as 1878 Father Marquette took
note of changes in the lake levels. He
asked the Indians about 1t, and they said
that Lake Michigan swung from high to
low and back again in fourteen years. or
that every seven years the water run the
gamut. Baron La Hontan, in 1889, made
scme tolerably extensive notes on the
variations In lake levels. He wrote that in
twenty-four hours once at the northern ex-
tremity of Lake Michigan he saw the lake
rise three feet and fall three feet in the
day. He was first to observe the flow of
water from Lake Huron to Lake Michi-
gan, or from Michigan to Huron, which is
now acknowledged
I'VE cast our fishing nets in the straits"
says the doughty old explorer, ''and for
three days the current sucked them to the
eastward so strongly that We could with
difficulty haul them from the water. Then
for two days the current set steadily
toward the west and carried our nets in
that direction.
Stories of mysterious inundations by the
lake of times when the beach widened, and
q great fringe was added to the sand along
the shore, have always been current among
Indian tribes. From Marquette down to
engineers and seamen of today, observa-
ton has confirmed these legends. At Sault
Ste Marie, Gen. Dearborn noted an ebb and
flow Of one and one-half feet of water In
two and a half hours.
Lake Erie has been known to rise from
seven to twenty feet in few hours. A few
years ago at Cleveland the lake suddenly
N&LN
rushed up to height of seven feet above
the ordinary level at Milwaukee. In that
same year the water fell six feet In Chi
cago harbor and somewhat less In the
schooners careened to one side, and the big
poles knocked together confusedly. 1t
looked as If the Chicago river would be
drained dry in half an hour, and the ex-
perience has never been forgotten among
the Chicago seamen. In 1s4S it Is said, the
same thing occurred.
In addition to these sudden and mex
plicable changes in the lake level there is
tolerably well-def1ned periodical movement
of the surface extending over a number Of
years. Sometimes 1t is claimed that this
movement requires seven years. sometimes
ten years. Ossian Guthrie and others de-
clare that the movement Is not periodic but
that it usually extends over from two TO
ten years. Then there is an annual rise Of
the lake from January to June, caused By
the ordinary spring rainfall, which runs the
in June than in January. For thirty years
consecutively the spring rise was found to
be fourteen and one-half inches. A series
of heavy spring rainfalls will raise the level
of the lake three or four feet above datum
for a number of years. and series OF
droughts will reduce it correspondingly;
Beginning with 1S47. Ossian Guthrie has
kept a record of the fluctuations Of the
level of Lake Michigan. In 1S4I. as has
beer stated Lake Michigan went very low.
From 1S47 to 1859, with occasional lapses, 1t
crept up nearly three feet above datum
From 1859 to 1853 1t fell, then 1t swung
back to two and one-half feet above datum
in 1916, ran down in 1879. going up abruptly
in the spring Of 1880. From 1880 to 1886 the
lake level rose three feet. From 1855 to lsS2
n fell about four feet. In the spring Of 1893
II rose fifteen inches in a few days time
Since 1893 the lake has been going down.
and during most of last fall and this spring
II has been below the 1S47 mark. Today
owing to the usual rise from rainfalls. the
lake Is higher than 1t was before the open
ing OF the drainage canal. Figures at the
TInstoA S4atoa en6ineer'a once show that