The lakes named are only mentioned for their importance; we will now call attention to lakes universally. Whoever reads this subject will be obliged to come to only one conclusion as to the general locality of lakes. Take our Adirondack region, with its thousands of pure, clear lakes hidden away among the rugged hills. The White mountain country where lakes abound. Chautauqua on its elevated ground, Mt. Desert in the ocean with its Eagle lake and others 1,200 feet above the sea. Lakes and living ponds, full of lilies, on Block Island. All through the mountains and wilds of Maine, and so on in every state the same condition exists, till you get to the level and prairie states where upheavals are rare for producing lakes and springs.
If a reader will peruse in “Picturesque America” the descriptive scenes on the French Broad River and the wonders through Delaware Water Gap, it is very doubtful if the various displays of waterfalls and profusion of springs and lakes will impress him with the idea that they are to be attributed to special rainfall in that locality. One particular evidence ought to be enough to dispel any such conclusion.
To quote from page 100: “As one of the wonders of the Gap must be counted the marvelous lake upon Tammany; a lake so singular that popular superstition has been tempted to add a final touch to its surpassing strangeness, and declare it has no bottom. As if in quaint climax to her wild work, Nature, after riving the mountain to its very base, here places beside the chasm on the very apex of the lofty peak a peaceful lake.”
This feature of lakes could be extended indefinitely, but something must be said about the smaller influences that produce them. Every lake is but a mammoth spring, or reservoir of numerous springs that feed into its base. The provision by nature of this inexhaustible reservoir of fresh water is beyond doubt the most essential of any other bounty bestowed upon every living thing on Earth’s surface. The principle of centrifugal motion and power is here developed to its highest advantage.
Every man that has ever turned a grindstone at early morning to prepare a dull scythe for its day’s work, has no doubt observed the result of frequent pouring on of water. If he turned slow, it would drizzle off at the bottom, supposed to obey the Law of Gravitation; but if he turned just fast enough, he could keep about a pint of water on the surface of a stone four inches thick and two feet in diameter. Increasing the speed results in throwing the water off in all directions.
If yarn or cloth wet from a tank or vat is put in a tub latticed outside and subjected to rapid revolutions, it can be thoroughly dried in a brief time. The process of separating cream from milk is done on the same principle by which butter can be made in ten minutes’ time from milking.
The familiar trick of whirling a pail of water over one’s head, is complete proof in itself that water seeks the surface and center of motion, and that all these results are from centrifugal force. A funnel of large, or any capacity, filled and a plug at the bottom removed to admit its discharge, will evidence that motion at once forms a circle, and that the center is bare while the outside is full.
At this point it may be well to call attention to another feature in the river system. The water on the grindstone will give force to this suggestion. At a certain speed the water will tend to the outside of the stone; below speed required to do that, the tendency will be toward the center of the stone, or strictly toward the center of the Earth’s motion.
Now let us see what the river system says. Look on your maps and see about where the common divide occurs, which is seemingly not far from the 50th parallel, where centrifugal force is apparently not strong enough to carry the waters toward the Equator, and the principal waters flow toward Symmes’s Hole.
Look on your maps.