heir waters, is now in progress; an improvement which, when completed, will form a second water.communication, extending from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of upwards of 3000 miles-the other communication being that already alluded to between Lake Erie and the Ohio by a canal from Cleveland to Portsmouth.

Lake Superior is connected with Lake Huron by the river St. Mary. This river, which is about forty miles in length, has a fall of twenty-three feet on the whole length of its course, and is navigable only for small boats. As yet the march of improvement has not penetrated to this remote region, but ere long, Lakes Superior and Huron, like Erie and Ontario, will proba bly be connected by a canal. Lake Superior is about 360 miles in length, 140 miles in breadth, and 1116 miles in circumference; the depth is in some places said to be 1200 feet, and its surface is 627 feet above the level of the sea. Its bottom consists of clay and small shells. This lake is the largest body of fresh water known to exist; and although surrounded by a comparatively desert and uncultivated country, at a distance of nearly 2000 miles from the ocean, and at an elevation of 627 feet above its surface, it is navigated by steamboats and sailing-vessels of great burden.

From what has been said regarding the great western lakes, it will easily be believed that, notwithstanding the secluded situation which they hold in the centre of North America, far removed from the ocean and from intercourse with the world at large, their waters are no longer the undisturbed haunt of the eagle, nor their coasts the dwelling of the Indian. Civilization has extended its influence even to that remote region, and their shores can now boast of numerous settlements, inhabited by a busy population, actively engaged in commercial pursuits. The white sails of fleets of vessels, and the smoking chimneys of numerous steamers, now thickly stud their wide expanse, and beacon-lights, illuminating their rocky shores with their cheering rays, guide the benighted navigator on his course. Every idea connected with a fresh-water lake, must be laid aside in considering the differ ent subjects connected with these vast inland sheets of water, which, in fact, in their general appearance, and in the phenomena which influence their navigation, bear a much closer resemblance to the ocean than the sheltered bays and sounds in which the harbors of the eastern coast of North Ameri. ca are situated, although these estuaries have a direct and short communica. tion with the Atlantic Ocean.

The whole line of coast formed by the margins of the several lakes above enumerated, extends to upwards of 4000 statute miles. There are several islands in Lake Superior, and also at the northern end of Lake Michigan, but the others are, generally speaking, free from obstructions. They have all, however, deep water throughout their whole extent, and present every facility for the purposes of navigation.

It was not till the year 1813, that the navigation of the lakes had become so extensive, and assumed so important a character, as to render the erection of lighthouses necessary and expedient, for insuring the safety of the numerous shipping employed on them. Since that period, the lighthouses have been gradually increasing, and, on the American side of the lakes, they now amount to about twenty-five in number, besides about thirty bea cons and buoys, which have been found of the greatest service.

About the same period at which the introduction of lighthouses was con. sidered necessary, some attention was also bestowed on the subject of lake harbors. Many which formerly existed, were then improved and enlarged,

and others were projected, and the works connected with them are now either finished, or are drawing to a close. Several of the ports on Lakes Erie and Ontario have good sheltered anchorages, with a sufficient depth of water at their entrances for the class of vessels frequenting them. But good harbor accommodation is by no means so easily obtained on the shores of the lakes, as, generally speaking, on the sea-coast of the United States. Most of the lake harbors are formed in exposed situations, and as regards the expense and durability of the several works executed in their formation, are much better calculated to resist the fury of the winds and waves, than the wooden wharfs of the seaports on the eastern coast of the country, of which a description has been given in the "Harbors of North America."

The town of Buffalo stands at the eastern corner of Lake Erie in the state of New York, and contains a population of about 16,000. As regards , the number of its inhabitants, and the extent of its commercial transactions, it is the most important place on the lakes, being in fact the New York of the western regions. From the month of June till the month of December inclusive, during which period the navigation of the lakes is generally open and unimpeded by ice, between forty and fifty steamboats, varying from 200 to 700 tons register, are constantly plying between Buffalo and the several ports on the shores of the lakes. Some of these steamers make regu. lar voyages once a month to Chicago in Lake Michigan, a distance of no less than 965 miles; and one leaves the harbor of Buffalo twice every day, during summer, for Detroit, a distance of 325 miles. The New York and Erie Canal, the earliest, and perhaps the most important public work executed in the United States, which enters the lakes at Buffalo, has a great effect in increasing its trade and importance.

Buffalo is built at the mouth of a creek communicating with the lake, in which the harbor is formed. The wharfs in the interior of the harbor are made of wood, but the covering pier, and other works exposed to the wash of the lakes, are built of stone, and cost about £40,000. The depth of water in the harbor is nine feet when the lake is in its lowest or summer water state. A covering pier has been erected for the purpose of protecting the shipping and tranquillizing the water within the harbor during heavy gales. It measures 1452 feet in length, and its form and construction are so very substantial, that one may fancy himself in some seaport, forgetting altogether that he is on the margin of a fresh-water lake, at an elevation of I more than 300 feet above the level of the ocean. The top of the pier on which the roadway is formed, measures eighteen feet in breadth, and is elevated about five feet above the level of the water in the harbor. On the side of the roadway which is exposed to the lake, a parapet-wall five feet in height extends along the whole length of the pier, from the top of which, a talus wall, battering at the rate of one perpendicular to three horizontal, slopes towards the lake. This sloping wall is formed of a description of masonry, which is technically termed coursed pitching. foundations are secured by a double row of strong sheeting piles driv en into the bed of the lake, and a mass of rubble pierres perdues, resting on the toe of the slope. The inner side of the pier presents a perpendicular face towards the harbor, and is sheathed with a row of sheeting piles, driven at intervals of about five feet apart from centre to cen

* See April number of this Magazine.

Its

tre, to prevent the quay wall from being damaged by vessels coming alongside of it.

The entrance to the harbor is marked by a double light, exhibited from two towers of good masonry built on the pier.

The workmanship and materials employed in erecting many of the other lake harbors, are of a much less substantial description than that adopted at Buffalo. The breakwater for the protection of Dunkirk Harbor on Lake Erie, for example, was formed in a most ingenious manner, by sinking a strong wooden frame-work filled with stones. The frame or crib was

erected during winter on the ice over the site which it was intended to occupy. The ice was then broken, and the crib being filled with small stones, .sunk to its resting place in the bottom of the lake.

Presque Isle Bay, in which the town of Erie stands, is formed by the peninsula of Presque-Isle, on the shore of Lake Erie. This bay measures about one mile in breadth, and three miles in length, and affords a splendid anchorage for vessels of the largest size. It opens towards the northwest, and is sheltered from the waves of the lakes by two covering breakwaters, measuring respectively 3000 and 4000 feet in length, projecting from the shore, and leaving a space between their outer extremities of 300 feet in breadth, for the ingress and egress of vessels.

Oswego, situate at the mouth of the Seneca river, on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, is a town of 6,500 inhabitants, having a good harbor. It stands at the commencement of the branch canal, which connects the great New York and Erie Canal with Lake Ontario, and is the seat of several manufactories and mills driven by the Seneca river, on which there are some very valuable falls. The pier, which has been built at this place for the protection of the harbor, is a very good specimen of masonry, finished somewhat in the same style as that at Buffalo, and cost about £20,000. The depth of water in the harbor is twenty feet, and it has a good har. bor-light placed in a substantial tower of masonry at the extremity of the pier.

The works required in the construction of Buffalo, Erie, and Oswego harbors were done at the expense, and under the direction of the government of the United States, who have also executed harbor-works of great extent, varying according to the nature of their situations, at the towns of Chicago, Michigan, Milwaukie, and Green Bay, in Lake Michigan; Detroit, Sandusky, Ashtabula, Portland, and Dunkirk, on Lake Erie; and at Genesee and Sackett's Harbor, on Lake Ontario.

The harbors on the Canadian or British shores of the lakes are, as yet, not so numerous. The principal ones are those of Toronto, Port Dalhousie, Burlington, Hungry Bay, and Kingston, on Lake Ontario; and Amherstburg, and Put-in Bay, on Lake Erie.

Toronto, the capital of Upper Canada, lies in a bay which is nearly cir. cular, and measures about a mile and a half in diameter. It is sheltered from the lake by a projecting neck of land called Gibraltar Point, on which the harbor-light is erected. This bay has a considerable depth of water, and affords an extensive and safe anchorage. Port Dalhousie is at the entrance of the Welland Canal, and has two piers, measuring respectively 200 and 250 feet in length, and also some pretty extensive works, connect. ed with a basin for receiving timber. Kingston, situate at the eastern end of Lake Ontario, just at the point where the river St. Lawrence flows out of the lakes, is the British government naval yard. Navy Bay, in which it

stands, is a good anchorage for vessels drawing eighteen feet of water, but is exposed to south and southwest winds. The British government have also executed works in some of the other harbors on the Canadian side of the lakes.

The tonnage of most of the craft employed in the lake navigation is regulated by the size of the canals which have been constructed for the purpose of connecting the lakes, and facilitating the navigation of the St. Lawrence. The locks of these canals are formed of such dimensions as to admit vessels of 125 tons burden, and consequently the lake craft, with a few exceptions, do not exceed this size. The steamboats, however, and all the vessels which are employed exclusively in the navigation of one lake, are never required to enter the canals, and many of these are of great size; some of the new steamers being no less than 700 tons burden. The art of ship-building, which is practised to a considerable extent in almost every port, is greatly facilitated by the abundance of fine timber produced in the neighborhood of the lakes; and to so great an extent has the art been carried on, that during the war a vessel called the St. Lawrence, of 102 guns, was launched by the British, at Kingston, and another by the Americans, at Sackett's Harbor, which measured 210 feet in length on her lower gun-deck.

The vessels used in the lake navigation, and more especially the steam. boats, which I had frequent opportunities of examining, possess, in a much greater degree, the character of sea-boats, than the same class of vessels employed in the sounds and bays on the shores of the Atlantic; and the substantial masonry of which the piers and breakwaters on the lakes are composed, renders these works much more capable of resisting the fury of the winds and waves than the wooden wharfs of the eastern coast of the The strength and durability of material which both the piers and the vessels present, are, at first sight, apt to appear superfluous in works connected with lake navigation. I was certainly impressed with this conviction when I first saw the stone piers of Buffalo, which I have already described; and the sight of the steamer "James Madison," a strongly. built vessel of 700 tons burden, drawing about ten feet of water, which plies between Buffalo on Lake Erie and Chicago on Lake Michigan, was in no way calculated to lessen the impression which the harbor had left; an impression which was heightened by the circumstance of my having, a short time before, examined the harbors on the eastern coast, and seen many of the slender fabrics, drawing from three to five feet of water, which navigate the bays and sounds in that part of the country. But, on inquiring more particularly into this subject, I was informed that these lakes are often visited by severe gales of wind, which greatly disturb the surface of their waters, and give rise to phenomena which one hardly expects to find in a fresh-water lake. In the opinion of many of the captains of the steamers with whom I conversed on this subject, the undulations created during some of these gales are no less formidable enemies to navigation than the waves of the ocean, so that the greatest strength in the hydraulic works and naval architecture of the lakes is absolutely necessary to insure their stability. In the harbor of Buffalo, which is situated in the northeast corner of Lake Erie, and has an unobstructed expanse of water extending before it for a distance of about 180 miles, the effects of the waves are very remarkable. The pier at this place is built of blue limestone. The materials are small, and no mortar is used in its construction; but the stones are hammer

dressed, well jointed, and carefully assembled in the walls, and the struc ture, as before noticed, both as regards the materials of which it is built, and its general design, is calculated to stand a good deal of fatigue. On examining this pier, however, I was surprised to find that it was in some places very much shaken, and, more particularly, that several stones in different parts of the work had actually been raised from their beds; but this work, as well as most of the harbors on the lakes, has annually to undergo some repair of damage occasioned by the violence of the waves. I measured several of the stones which had been moved, and one of the largest of them, weighing upwards of half a ton, had been completely turned over, and lay with its bed or lower side uppermost.

I met with another striking example of the violence of the lake waves on the road leading from Cattaraugus to Buffalo, which winds along the side of Lake Erie, in some places close to the water, and in others removed several hundred feet from its margin. The surface of this road is elevated several feet above the level of the lake; but, notwithstanding this, many of the fine large trees, with which the whole country is thickly covered, have been rooted up and drifted across the road by the violence of the wind and waves, and now lie along its whole line piled up in the adjoining fields. Every winter's storm adds to these heaps of drifted timber, and they will doubtless continue to be enlarged till the increasing value of the lands on the margin of the lake, which, in their present state, are wholly useless in an agricultural point of view, renders the erection of works for their protection a matter of pecuniary interest to the proprietors.

The following extract also, from the Annual Report of the Board of the New York State Canals for 1835, shows the severity of the lake storms :— "The method of towing barges by means of steamboats has been very successfully practised on the Hudson river; but on the lakes, though a great many steamboats have been in use for several years, the plan has not been adopted, because the steamboats cannot manage barges in a storm. We have been informed of a proposition made to the proprietors of a steamboat to take some canal boats from Buffalo to Cleveland; and it was accepted only on the condition that, in the event of a storm, they should be at liberty to cut them loose, at the risk of the owners.

"An intelligent gentleman, of several years' experience in navigating steamboats, and the two last seasons on Lake Ontario, informs us, that he considered it impracticable, as a regular business, for steamboats on the lakes to tow vessels with safety, unless the vessels were fitted with masts and rigging, and sufficiently manned, so as to be conducted by sails in a storm; that storms often rise very suddenly on these lakes, and with such violence as would compel a steamboat to cut loose vessels in tow, in order to sustain herself."

The most striking indications of the extreme violence of these storms are found in those parts of the coast where the lake is of great breadth, and where there is deep water close in-shore. On the other hand, in situations where the shores are contracted, or defended by islands, or where the lake is for some distance very shallow, the water does not appear to be so much agitated by the wind. Such facts regarding the lake storms serve to indicate that the formation of those undulations in the sea, which prove so destructive to our marine works, depends on the action of the wind, and is not necessarily connected with the great tidal wave occasioned by the attraction of the moon and sun, whose influence in affecting the