Cayuga Lake

“ The nature of the proof is that the preglacial tributaries to this valley are found to be rock-incased, and that their lowest points are above the present lake surface. The paper presents also a brief discussion of the reason why a rock basin may be supposed to have been constructed with comparative ease in this region, and a rhythm of glacial erosion and deposition is suggested. The course of the preglacial Cayuga River is found to be northward, probably tributary to a river which drained at least one of the Great Lakes—Ontario. ”

“ Upper Cayuga, an Indian town of fourteen very large houses located near the north line of the town of Ledyard in Cayuga County, on the south bank of Great Gully brook, and as appears on the map, between one and two miles from the lake. ”

“ The Finger Lake valleys extend nearly north and south, long and narrow, like so many fingers, the two longest, Cayuga and Seneca, being about forty miles in length, and at the lake surface from one to three miles in width. Their bottoms are below sea-level. ”

“ The road from Cayuga to Geneva is for a few miles along the southern or south-eastern side, and the rest along the northern or north-eastern side of the Seneca outlet. The face of the country near the road is more level; but the soil is more sandy and uninviting than we had lately seen, till we approached near to Geneva. The land there is excellent, as we were told it was, through all the tract which extends between the Cayuga and Seneca Lakes. This tract rises in a kind of reguular glacis from each lake, so that from the middle of it one can see both. ”

“ The various glens of the Cayuga and Seneca Lake valleys, whose general cause is as above stated, differ greatly in detail. They are all wild and picturesque, and they are all narrow gorges with many cascades and waterfalls. ”

“ There is a wooden bridge across the lake, leading from Cayuga village towards Geneva, one mile long, wanting three [Pg 132] roods. It suffered so much by shocks of the ice last winter, that in some places it is hardly safe to pass it. This forenoon we had passed the outlet of the Owasco Lake, but did not see the lake itself, which we were told was about a mile south of the road. The country hitherto is somewhat uneven, though by no means so much so as near the Onondaga Hollow. The soil, however, is excellent in many places, and is of a reddish color. ”

“ The company continued their journey towards the sunsetting. The fourth family was directed to make their residence near a long lake named Go-yo-goh, i. e. a mountain rising from water, (now Cayuga) and the family was named Sho-nea-na-we-to-wah, i. e. a great pipe, their language was altered. The company continued to proceed towards the sunsetting. The fifth family was directed to make their residence near a high mountain, or rather nole, situated south of the Canandaigua lake, which was named Jenneatowake and the family was named Te-how-nea-nyo-hent, i. ”

“ The primitive forest bends over the lake's clear waters, and surrounds the log cabin or infant settlement with the wigwam and canoe of the Indian half breeds, who are still fishing and hunting round the graves of their ancestors-once the fiercest of all the warrior races that scarce forty years ago as sovereigns roamed its wilds.
The majestic solitudes of these lakes first received the white man in 1679, when the discoverers La Salle and Hennepin, in the vessel of sixty tons, which they had built with their Indians at Cayuga Creek, sailed up Niagara River, Lakes Erie, St. ”

“ Numbers of canal boats are assembled here, and also the two-masted schooners which navigate the lake. Several large, commodious steamers, generally full of passengers, come and depart daily. The Cayahoga flows through the lower part of the town; both sides of the mouth of the river are lined with wood; and on the right bank there is a long mole, with a lighthouse at the extremity. A second lighthouse is built a little to the right, upon an eminence; and in the far distance, on the right hand, the coast is lost in the misty horizon, and, on the left, disappears amid thick forests. ”

“ Guaxequillo is situated on its east bank, about its center.
The Rio Nassas [Nasas] is in part the line between Biscay and Cogquilla; it runs north and sinks in the lake du Cayman [Laguna del Muerto] ; it is nearly dry in the dry seasons, but at some seasons it is impassable.
Lakes. Lac du Cayman and lac du Parras are two small lakes situated at the foot of the mountains [in the Bolson de Mapimi] , and are full of fish.
Animals, Insects, etc. There are some few bears, deer, and wild horses, but they are not in abundance. ”

“ The three days of travel were now almost spent, when passing the brow of a wild heathy hill, the domain of Cahergillagh opened suddenly upon our view.
It formed a striking and a beautiful scene. A lake of considerable extent stretching away towards the west, and reflecting from its broad, smooth waters the rich glow of the setting sun, was overhung by steep hills, covered by a rich mantle of velvet sward, broken here and there by the grey front of some old rock, and exhibiting on their shelving sides and on their slopes and hollows every variety of light and shade. ”

“ The next three days of our life were spent on the water—first cruising down the Victoria Nile till it flows into Chioga, and then traversing the smooth, limpid expanses of that lake. Every evening we landed at camps prepared by the Busoga chiefs, pitched our tents, lighted our fires, and erected our mosquito-houses, while dusk drew on, and thunderstorms—frequent at this season of the year—wheeled in vivid splendour about the dark horizon. All through the hot hours of the day one lay at the bottom of massive canoes, sheltered from the sun by an improvised roof of rushes and wet grass. ”

“ It is the grand reservoir from whence proceed the waters of Michigan, Huron, and Erie. It gives birth to Niagara, the wonder of the world, fills the basin of Ontario, and rolls a mighty flood down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
This lake lies in the bosom of a mountainous region, where the Indian yet reigns and roams in his wonted freedom. Except an occasional picketed fort or trading house, it is yet a perfect wilderness. The entire country is rocky and covered with a stunted growth of vegetation such as is usual in high latitudes. ”

“ Wild rose and dogwood form dense masses overarching the stream, and out of this bower the creek, grown strong with many indashing tributaries, leaps forth into the light, and descends in a fluted curve thick-sown with crisp flashing spray. At the foot of the cañon there is a lake formed in part at least by the damming of the stream by a terminal moraine. The three other lakes in the cañon are in basins eroded from the solid rock, where the pressure of the glacier was greatest, and the most resisting portions of the basin rims are beautifully, tellingly polished. ”

“ As they moved away from the hemlock's shade a canoe swept over the lake and touched the sand, and two stern-faced Cayugas lifted their paddles, shaking the water from the blades. These brought a brace of land-locked salmon to the beach. A young woman followed, and after her an old man, his thick hair adorned with a bunch of feathers. These were Shuswap and Onawa, his youngest daughter.
The lord of the isles went forward, and met his native relatives upon the beach.
"Gitsa," cried the old man. "We greet you, Gitsa." ”

“ Starting from Fond du Lac in July, a Chipewyan family sets out in two canoes, the big communal one, and the little hunting-canoe, the dogs following along shore. It is paddle and portage for days and weary weeks, inland and ever inland. In October the frost crisps into silence the running water and the lake lip. Snow begins to fall, and the grind of forming ice warns the Chipewyan it is time to change birchbark for moccasin and snow-shoe. Canoes are cached, and the trail strikes into the banksian pine and birchwood. The door of the forest is lonely and eerie. ”

“ At that moment a hundred voices shouted the name of Cayugas.
“I knew it!” exclaimed the chief, “there is but one such a people with a red skin; my warriors are keen-sighted; they cannot be mistaken. Now, we Comanches never take the scalp of a Cayuga any more than that of a hedge-hog; we kick them out of our way when they cross our path; that’s all. Hear me my braves, and believe me, though I will speak strange words: these reptiles have thought that because we have not killed them as toads and scorpions, it was because we were afraid of their poison. ”

“ By the autumn of '59 a thousand miners were at work round Quesnel Lake. By the spring {42} of '60 Yale and Hope were almost deserted. Men on the upper diggings were making from sixty to a hundred dollars a day. Only Chinamen remained on the lower bars.
It was in the autumn of the year '60 that Doc Keithley, John Rose, Sandy MacDonald, and George Weaver set out from Keithley Creek, which flows into Cariboo Lake, to explore the cup-like valley amid the great peaks which seemed to feed this lake. They toiled up the creek five miles, then followed signs up a dry ravine seven miles farther. ”

“ The man who loves the breath of the storm and the glow of excitement will loose his boat from Tallac when the clouds swing down the canyon and speed forth borne, as it were, on the wings of the waves toward the distant foot of the Lake—past the black water wall where the waves of Emerald Bay sweep into Tahoe, through the frothy waters where the wind shifts and whips around Rubicon Point, over the white caps of Meek's Bay until by skillful maneuvering the jutting cape is weathered and quieter water is found in McKinney Bay. ”

“ Whenever a lone man came in from the hills and paid for his purchase in nuggets, such vultures would trail him back to his claim and make what they could out of his discovery.
So, by pack-train and canoe, the miners {41} worked up to Alexandria, to Quesnel, to Fort George. Towards spring, when the prospectors had succeeded in packing in more provisions, they began striking back east from the main river, following creeks to their sources, and from their sources over the watershed to the sources of creeks flowing in an opposite direction. Late in '59 men reached Quesnel Lake and Cariboo Lake. ”

“ As it was repeatedly captured and burned by the Portuguese, Dutch, and English, it presents no architectural monuments with any pretension to antiquity. Here we are about seventeen hundred feet above sea level, beside a spacious, though artificial lake, which represents a small portion of the grand system of irrigation for which Ceylon was so famous through a score of centuries. There is no natural lake worthy of the [207] name in the country, though there are numerous ponds, large and small, here and there, especially in the southern part of the island. ”

“ A wilderness of bowlders compels the winding about of the trail, but we hear and see Five Lake Creek, roaring and dashing along, for it has a large flow of water and its course is steep and rocky. We pass through groups of willows, wild currants and alders, enter a sparsely wooded meadow and in a few moments see the first of the Five Lakes. There is but little difference in their levels, though their sizes vary considerably. The first one is the largest. Here is a log cabin and two or three boats. These are owned by the Deer Park Springs resort, and are for their fishing and hunting patrons. ”

“ One of the most interesting objects to a tourist in Ceylon is a secluded lake or tank in those jungle districts which are seldom disturbed by the white man. There is something peculiarly striking in the wonderful number of living creatures which exist upon the productions of the water. Birds of infinite variety and countless numbers—fish in myriads—reptiles and crocodiles—animals that feed upon the luxuriant vegetation of the shores—insects which sparkle in the sunshine in every gaudy hue ”

“ A valley of the required extent being selected, the courses of neighboring or distant rivers were conducted into it, and the exit of the waters was prevented by great causeways, or dams, of solid masonry, which extended for some miles across the lower side of the valley thus converted into a lake. The exit of the water was then regulated by means of sluices, from which it was conducted by channels to the rice-lands.
These tanks are of various extent, and extremely numerous throughout Ceylon. The largest are those of Minneria, Kandellai, Padavellkiellom, and the Giant Tank. ”

“ It is well to remember that the water shed of the Tennessee River embraces 40,910 square miles. Believe it or not, about half of that area is found above the Chickamauga Dam. This upper basin has an average rainfall of 50.8 inches.
LOOKING WESTWARD
Let us now turn our backs to the Chickamauga Lake for a glimpse towards the west. To the southwest, we see Lookout Mountain standing like a bright cameo in a position as if it were looking down on Chattanooga. To our right, we view the head of another rocky monster that is looking southward. ”

“ There is a tiny lake near by that nestles among the hill-side farms, where sloping pastures and fields of yellow, rustling corn glide almost to the water’s edge. So sensitive and sympathetic is this little sheet of water that I christened it one day Chameleon Lake, for it wears a different expression for every phase of season or freak of weather, and always dwells in harmony with the landscape which encloses it. In cloudy days it frowns as cold as steel. In days of sunshine it is as bright and blue as the sky itself, or shimmers like a shield of burnished silver. ”