sailing vessels, and the rest canal boats and barges; built during the year, 5 vessels of 3,760 tons. The principal articles of shipment are lumber, coal, iron ore, and petroleum. The leading manufactures are of iron, embracing stoves, steam engines, machinery, car wheels, and car work, besides which there are several manufactories of bricks, leather, organs, pumps, furniture, and other wood work, a brass foundery, six petroleum refineries, five beer breweries, two ale breweries, three malting establishments, &c. There are four national banks, with an aggregate capital of $850,000, a safe deposit and trust company, three savings banks, and four insurance companies. Erie is divided into six wards, and is governed by a mayor, and a select council of two members and a common council of three members from each ward. It is lighted with gas, and is supplied from the lake with water, which is forced by powerful engines to the top of a tower 200 ft. high, whence it is distributed through the mains. In 1872 there were 49 public schools, viz., 1 high, 16 grammar, 30 primary, and 2 evening, having 53 teachers and an average attendance of 2,154 pupils. St. Benedict's female academy (Roman Catholic) had 17 teachers and 60 pupils. The young men's Christian association has a library of 4,710 volumes. There are one daily and six weekly (two German) newspapers, an academy, marine hospital, city hospital, jail, orphan asylum, and 29 churches.—The French had a fort on the site of Erie, known as Fort de la Presqu'isle, about 1749, The town was laid out in 1795. A portion of it was incorporated as a borough in 1805, and in 1851 a city charter was granted. The fleet of Com. Perry during the war of 1812-'15 was built and equipped here.
ERIE, Lake, the most southern of the five great lakes of the northern United States and of Canada, and the lowest of the chain, except Lake Ontario, which lies below it to the northeast. It is bounded N. by the province of Ontario, Canada, S. E. and S. by New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and W. by Michigan, and lies between lat. 41° 25' and 42° 55' N, and lon. 78° 55' and 83° 34' W. Both the lakes named lie nearly in the extension of the line of the river St. Lawrence, the outlet of all these bodies of fresh water. The mean length of Lake Erie is about 240 m.; mean breadth, 40 m.; circumference, 660 m.; elevation above the level of the sea, 565 ft.; area, 9,600 sq. m. Its surface is 333 ft. above that of Lake Ontario, this great descent being made in the Niagara river, which connects the two lakes. The form of the lake is elliptical, its maximum length exceeding the mean by only about 15 m., and the breadth varying from 30 to 60 m. Its western extremity receives from the north the waters of the upper lakes, discharged by the Detroit river. At this extremity are many islands clustered together, the largest one about 14 m. in circumference. They are well wooded, with a fertile soil de- rived from the limestone rocks of which they are composed, and to some extent they are under cultivation. The peculiar features of Lake Erie are its shallowness and the clayey nature of its shores, the depth, except near its lower end, rarely exceeding 120 ft. The United States engineers found three divisions in the floor of the lake, of increasing depth toward the outlet. The upper portion, above Point Pelee island, has a level bottom with an average depth of 30 ft. The middle portion takes in the principal part of the lake, extending to Long Point. The bottom is here level also, and from 60 to 70 ft. below the surface. Below Long Point the depth varies from 60 to 240 ft. Its bottom is a light clayey sediment, which rapidly accumulates from the wearing away of the strata that compose its shores. Along the coast the loosely aggregated products of the disintegrated strata are frequently seen forming high cliffs, which extend back into elevated plateaus. The rivers cut deep channels through these, discharging the excavated matters into the lake. The underground watercourses penetrate through the base of the cliffs and undermine them, and the waves aid to break them down. Slides are of frequent occurrence. The water takes up the earthy materials, and is rendered turbid by them a long way out from the land. This may be seen on both sides of the lake; and about Cleveland in Ohio the wearing back of the coast line has been particularly remarked. For 40 m., extending E. to Fairport, the shores are of this character, the stratified clays and sand forming a terrace, the height of which at Cleveland is 103 ft. above the water. Owing to the shallowness of the lake, it is readily disturbed by the wind; and for this reason, and for its paucity of good harbors, it has the reputation of being the most dangerous to navigate of any of the great lakes. Long continued storms, with the wind setting from one extremity of the lake toward the other, produce disastrous effects upon the land to leeward by the piling up of the waters. From this cause the city of Buffalo at the foot of the lake has suffered serious damage in its lower portions. The return of the waters after the storm is in some instances so rapid, when driven along by a wind setting in the same direction, that powerful currents are produced. In October, 1833, a current thus caused burst a passage through the peninsula on the N. coast called Long Point, and excavated a channel more than 9 ft. deep and 900 ft. wide. The natural harbors around the lake are few, and these have required artificial improvement. They are generally at the mouths of the small rivers which flow into the lake, the channels of which are carried far out by piers, constructed on one or both sides. Erie in Pennsylvania has a large natural harbor, formerly known as that of Presque Isle, which has been improved. The best harbor between it and Buffalo is Dunkirk. The other principal harbors on the S. side are those of
