The Hollow Earth

by F. T. Ives

The outflow from this lake furnishes the great river passing through the Sault Ste. Marie, through which passes a greater tonnage of vessels than through the Suez canal, and most of them of very large draft. This river with the combined waters of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron passes on through the Detroit River and Lake Erie and over Niagara Falls. It is also claimed that from Lake Superior a large subterranean stream flows into Lake Ontario from which lake the stream in junction with Niagara river forms the St. Lawrence, the river so copious in its flow as to be immune from floods.

This question is in point: Where does this enormous supply of water come from to supply Lake Superior?

Without taking single witnesses, we will call up groups. Take the various great lakes of the world, Europe, Asia and Africa, where all great rivers seem to have their sources in some lake.

As to rainfall if that originates these streams, and if so, how is their flow kept so uniform, or is it from a steady, unfailing source, as would come from the inside ocean of supply?

Lakes of enormous depth exist in the Sierra Nevada, and Rocky Mountains, as Pyramid Lake, Donner, Tahoe and Crater Lakes. In our Adirondacks are thousands of lakes, in Vermont and New Hampshire, and in the White Mountain region, throughout the mountain portions of Maine, in West Virginia, and the Carolinas, and in other high and mountainous sections lakes abound. As we come to the low country there are few witnesses to call, as the only body of water worth mentioning is in Utah, that lake being salt and below the level of the ocean.

While the subject of this chapter is introduced under the heading of springs, it may seem out of place to bring in these great lakes, assuming that they are of the same class. But there is no doubt whatever of their being nothing more or less than mammoth springs.

Next to the great lake system of the world, may be called in evidence the atolls so prevalent in the southern Pacific Ocean and growing also in other places on the globe. These peculiar features appear to have been built up from the tops of submarine mountains or old craters that have been filled with fresh water, from which structures of coral have grown till they reached the surface. The formation of these atolls being generally elongated, or in chains like mountain ranges, is suggestive of the same influence in their inception as the upheaval of mountain chains on land surfaces by hydraulic pressure.

This may be a good place to ask where the fresh water supply comes from to produce these atolls. That they are produced by fresh water there can be no question, as the work of coral is never performed without an abundance of this element to build through. That the bottom of the ocean has many subterranean rivers nobody will dispute. That nearly every island in the ocean has springs of fresh water, none can deny. Where does it come from? Many of these islands have thermal springs, like Iceland with its geysers of many varieties. Some with common fresh water, and nearby springs of mineral water. One familiar to this region is Block Island with both fresh water and mineral springs, and little lakes on the high ground alive with fresh water fish. Are they supplied with rain water?

Mount Desert is a very good witness to call. Here is an island eighteen miles in diameter surrounded by salt water with an elevation of 1,800 feet, and 1,200 feet above the ocean are three fine lakes, Eagle Lake, Crooked Lake, and Echo Lake. In which lakes are trout weighing eight or ten pounds. On this small island are to be found thousands of springs pouring out from every crack and crevice. The water is pure and clear as in all such cases. Where does it come from? No more generous gift to man and all animated nature, has been bestowed by Providence than the universal distribution of springs all over the world.

Within twenty rods of the top of Mount Washington, the highest peak in the New England States, flows out a copious spring of water. The whole mountain system is full of springs and lakes. The entire Adirondack region is in the same condition. It is safe to leave it to the reader who has ever been out of sight of the smoke of his own chimney to think of the abundance of instances where he has seen lakes and springs on the tops of high hills, where no shed water to any extent could reach them, and wonder how they came there.