The New Orleans Crescent

Heard of the Lakes Tides-Extraordinary Fall of the Waters of Lake Michigan-The Lowest Stage Known in Thirty Years.

[From the Chicago Times.]

The water in Lake Michigan is said to be five inches lower than has been known before for eighteen years, and thirty inches lower than it was six years ago. This calls to mind some curious facts in regard to the rise and fall of the lakes, and which, for years, has engaged the attention of scientific men. While the lakes are subject to the same tidal influences which produce the oceanic tides; and while these influences must be felt, practically, owing to the comparatively small area of the lakes, there is no tidal ebb and flow of their waters, it being so slight as to be imperceptible. But other curious phenomena have been noticed, and, as yet, have not been satisfactorily explained. It has been ascertained that, with considerable regularity, there is a periodical ebb and flow in the lake, the water rising gradually from seven to nine years, and subsiding in the same manner, usually high and low stage, exactly corresponding with the rise and fall of the waters of the sea at distant points. Through a long period of years, this regularity has been noticed, but it is not yet incontrovertibly established that it is in obedience to some undiscovered law, and though very important-may have been the result of accident. In the fall, after the subsidence of the spring freshets, and when under the full effect of the summer's drought and after the evaporation has been the greatest, it is found that instead of any abatement in the volume of water in their basins, there has been a gradual rise during the entire summer. Another noticeable fact is that in the spring, at a period when the discharge into the lakes is the greatest, and when they are least affected by evaporation, the water is invariably the lowest. These are the facts, and although they have engaged the attention of scientific men, no solution has yet been reached. It is apparent that the lakes are not affected by freshets, droughts, or evaporation. But whether these phenomena are the effect of subterranean channels and outlets, a sort of mystic connection with inter-oceanic currents, is still an unsolved problem, which brings the lakes within the influence of international law.