THE LAKES OF NEW YORK.
The northwestern boundary of the State of New York is formed by Lake Ontario, of which the St. Lawrence River is the outlet, flowing northeastward into Canada. Ontario is the smallest and the lowest in level of the group of Great Lakes, its name given by the Indians meaning the "beautiful water." It is about one hundred and eighty miles long, and its surface is two hundred and thirty-one feet above tide, but it is fully five hundred feet deep, so that it has more depth below the ocean level than the lake surface is above. It has a marked feature along its southern shore, where a narrow elevation known as the "Lake Ridge" extends nearly parallel with the edge of the lake, and from four to eight miles distant. The height of this ridge usually exceeds one hundred and sixty feet above the lake level, and in some places is nearly two hundred feet, and it is, throughout, from five to twenty feet above the immediate surface of the land, there being a width at the summit of some thirty feet, from which the ground slopes away on both sides. This ridge is regarded as an ancient shore-line formed by the waters of the lake, and the chief public highway on the southern side of the lake is laid for many miles along its summit. The main tributaries of Ontario from New York are the Black, Oswego and Genesee Rivers. The Black River gathers various streams draining the western slopes of the Adirondacks, and its name comes from the dark amber hue of the waters. It flows northwest through a forest-covered region, pours down Lyons Falls, a fine cataract of seventy feet, passes the manufacturing towns of Lowville and Watertown, and finally discharges by the broadened estuary of Black River Bay into the east end of Lake Ontario. From Rome, on the Mohawk, a canal is constructed northward to the Black River.
Westward from Rome the land is an almost level plain, rising into the Onondaga highlands to the southward. Cazenovia Lake, among these hills, sends its outlet northward over the plain to Oneida Lake. There are various little lakelets between, but the ground is impregnated with sulphur, so that their waters are bitter, and one is consequently named Lake Sodom. Oneida is a large lake, twenty-three miles long and several miles broad, with low and marshy shores. In the fertile dairy region to the southeastward is located the "Inspiration Community" of Oneida, founded in 1847 by John Humphrey Noyes, a Vermont preacher. In 1834, when twenty-three years old, he experienced what he called a "second conversion," and announced himself a "perfectionist." He preached his new faith and finally established the Oneida Community for its demonstration, with about three hundred members. They maintain the perfect equality of women with men in all social and business relations, and have become quite wealthy as manufacturers, farmers and dairymen. The outlet of Oneida Lake, and in fact the outlet streams of all the lakes of Central New York, discharge into Oswego River, which flows northward into Lake Ontario. Oswego means "the small water flowing into that which is large," and the port at its mouth, noted for its flour and starch-mills, has about twenty-five thousand people, and is the largest city on the New York shore of Lake Ontario. This was an early French settlement in the seventeenth century, when the river was known by them as the "river of the Onondagas."
The great plain south of Lake Ontario, which is believed to have been itself formerly a lake bed, rises into highlands farther southward, and the noted group of lakes of Central New York are scattered in the valleys which are deeply fissured into these highlands. Most of these lakes are long and narrow, and they nestle in almost parallel valleys, their waters occupying the bottoms of deep ravines. These lakes present much fine scenery, and their shores are among the most attractive parts of New York. They display vineyards and fruit orchards and extensive pastures, and their present names are the original titles given them by the Iroquois, many of whom still live on reservations near them. Southwest of Oneida is Onondaga Lake, and farther west Skaneateles and Owasco. Then beyond is the larger Cayuga Lake, and to the westward Seneca, the largest of the group, sixty miles long, elevated two hundred feet above Lake Ontario, and of great depth, estimated to exceed six hundred feet. This lake was never known to be frozen over but once, and that was late in March many years ago; steamboats traverse it every day in the year. Cayuga Lake is of similar character, but of slightly less size and elevation, and in some places is so deep as to be almost unfathomable. These parallel lakes are separated by an elevated ridge only a few miles wide, and their great depth, descending much below the level of Ontario, into which they discharge, gives evidence to the geologists that their waters originally drained to the southward. Westward of Seneca is Keuka or the Crooked Lake, the Indian name meaning "the lake of the Bended Elbow." It is a pretty sheet of water, having an angle in its centre, from which starts out another long and narrow branch, so that its spreading arms make it look much like the aboriginal signification. It is elevated two hundred and seventy-seven feet above the level of Seneca Lake, which is only seven miles away. Beyond Keuka is Canandaigua Lake, the westernmost of the group.
THE SYRACUSE SALT-MAKERS.
Onondaga Lake is comparatively small, being six miles long and about a mile broad, and it is noted for its salt wells, which have made the prosperity of the city of Syracuse, the largest in Central New York, built along Onondaga Creek south of the lake, and upon the slopes of the higher hills to the eastward. An Indian trader started the town in the eighteenth century, and soon afterwards Asa Danforth began making salt at Salt Point on the lake, calling his village Salina. When the Erie Canal came along the place grew rapidly, and it is now a great canal and railroad centre, with lines radiating in various directions, and from it the Oswego Canal goes northward to Lake Ontario. The city has a population approximating a hundred thousand. The salt springs come out of the rocks of the Upper Silurian period, and are located chiefly in the marshes bordering Onondaga Lake. The brine wells are bored in the lowlands surrounding the lake to a depth of two hundred to over three hundred feet. The State of New York controls the wells and pumps the brine to supply the evaporating works, which are private establishments, a royalty of one cent per bushel being charged. The main impurity that has to be driven out of the brine is sulphate of lime, and the finer product has a high reputation, the "Onondaga Factory-Filled Salt" being greatly esteemed. The salt wells were known to the Indians, and the French Jesuit missionaries found them as early as 1650, taking salt back to Canada. In 1789 they yielded five hundred bushels, and they have since produced as high as nine millions of bushels a year, the annual product now being about three millions. The brine is first pumped into small shallow vats, where it remains until the carbonic acid gas escapes and the iron is deposited as an oxide. It is then led to the evaporating vats, all processes being used, solar as well as boiling. The land bordering the marshy shores of Onondaga Lake is framed around by rows of factories and heating furnaces, while out on the marshes are clusters of little brown houses, each covering a well and pump. From there the brine is led through conduits made of bored logs, called the "salt logs," to the evaporating vats and factories, some going long distances. Everything throughout the whole district is profusely saturated with salt.
Syracuse is one of the handsomest cities of the Empire State. The New York Central Railroad passes through the centre of the business section, the locomotives and ordinary traffic sharing the main street in common, in front of the chief hotels and stores, for thus has the town grown up. Just northward, the Erie Canal also goes through the heart of the city, giving on moonlight nights scenes that are almost Venetian. The streets are broad, and ornamental squares are frequent, the chief residential highways—James, Genesee and University Streets—being bordered with imposing dwellings surrounded by extensive grounds. Magnificent trees line the streets and broad lawns stretch back to the dwellings, everything being open to public view, so that in these parts the town is practically a vast park. To the eastward rises University Hill, crowned by the buildings of Syracuse University, a Methodist foundation having eleven hundred students. Holden Observatory adjoins the grand graystone main college building, and from this high hill there is a magnificent view over the city and the oval-shaped lake and its salt marsh border off to the northwest. The southern view is enclosed by the Onondaga highlands, out of which Onondaga Creek comes through a deep and winding valley. Back among these dark blue distant hills still live in pastoral simplicity the remnants of the "Men of the Mountain,"—the Onondagas,—the ruling power of the famous Iroquois Confederation.
AUBURN, ITHACA AND CORNELL.
Westward from Syracuse the country is full of lakes. Otisco Lake,—the "Bitter-nut Hickory,"—is an oval four miles long, embosomed in hills. To the northwest of Otisco is Skaneateles Lake—the "Long Water"—the most picturesque of all, set among most imposing hills, which, notwithstanding the lake is elevated eight hundred and sixty feet, still rise twelve hundred feet above its surface, giving the waters the deeply blue tinge of an Italian scene. This lovely lake is sixteen miles long, and in no place more than a mile and a half wide, its outlet having a fine cataract. To the westward is Owasco Lake—"the bridge on the water floating"—eleven miles long and a mile wide, walled in by rocky bluffs, yet having its shores diversified by meadows and farm land. About two miles northward, on its outlet, is the busy manufacturing city of Auburn, with thirty thousand people, which was the home of William H. Seward, Governor and Senator from New York, who was President Lincoln's Secretary of State during the Civil War. Its most extensive establishment is the Auburn Prison, covering about eighteen acres, enclosed by walls four feet thick and twelve to thirty-five feet high, there being imprisoned usually about twelve hundred convicts. The surface of the city is varied by hills, making handsome villa sites, and the Owasco Lake outlet flows down a series of rapids, falling one hundred and sixty feet, and utilized by no less than nine dams to turn the wheels of many mills. Captain Hardenburgh was the first settler here in 1793, the original name being "Hardenburgh's Corners." On Fort Hill, one of the highest elevations, the top of which is supposed to be an eminence originally raised by the ancient Mound-Builders, and was an Iroquois fortification, is the Cemetery where are interred the remains of William H. Seward, who died in 1872.
After crossing a rich grazing country, farther to the westward is Cayuga Lake—the name meaning "Where they take canoes out"—stretching from the level plain of Central New York southward into the highlands, making the watershed between the affluents of the St. Lawrence and the Susquehanna. Progressing southward along the long and narrow lake, the hills are found to grow steadily higher, and they reach an elevation of several hundred feet above its surface. The bordering rocky buttresses rise up as columns and walls, with accurately-squared corners, their perpendicular stratification making the flagstone layers that have been loosened by the frost stand on edge and separately, seeming almost ready to topple over, while heaps of broken fragments are strewn at their bases, which, being pulverized by the action of frost and water into small particles, produce a smooth and narrow beach. At the head of the lake the deep valley is prolonged farther southward between even higher enclosing ridges, the Cayuga Inlet winding through it. Here, about a mile from the lake, is a flourishing town of twelve thousand people, reproducing the name of the Ionian Island that was the fabled kingdom of Ulysses—Ithaca. It is the centre of a grazing region, producing cheese, butter and wool, and its water-power has given some manufacturing activity, but it is chiefly known to fame from the surrounding galaxy of waterfalls and the possession of Cornell University.