27th.  Received a communication from the chief engineer of the New York canal (Alfred Barrett, Esq.) on the subject of the rise of water in the lakes.  “A question of considerable importance,” he says, “has arisen in our State Legislature, in relation to the rise of water in Lake Erie.  The lake has been gradually increasing in its height for the last ten years, and has gained an elevation of four feet above that of 1826.  The inhabitants along the shores of the lake as far as Detroit, upon both sides, and many throughout our State, have been led to attribute this increase to the erection of the State and the United States pier at the outlet of the lake, opposite Black Rock, which presents an obstruction to the action of the river.  But this evidently is not the only cause of the rise of the lake, for, by observation, we find the Niagara River below the dam, and the surface of Lake Ontario, to have increased in the same ratio in the same time.  Lake Ontario is four feet higher than it was in 1826.

“Our Legislature has called for information on the subject.  And for many important facts we shall be indebted to the goodness of persons residing or acquainted at the places where they may exist.  The canal commissioners of the State have desired me to communicate with you, desiring such data as you may have in your possession relevant to the subject.  And we are induced to trouble you for information respecting the condition of the water in Lake Superior and other western waters, believing that your extensive acquaintance and close observation in that region have put you in possession of facts which will enable you to determine, with a degree of accuracy, the fluctuations of these waters, and their present increased or diminished height, as well as to trace some of the causes which have an influence in producing the results that are experienced in the rise and fall of the lakes.”

This rise and fall is found to be concurrent in volume and time in the whole series of lake basins, and is not at all influenced by artificial constructions.  It is believed to be dependent on the annual fall of water, on the water sheds of the lake basins, and the comparative evaporation caused by the annual diffusion of solar heat during the same periods.  Nothing less than the accumulation of facts to illustrate these general laws, for considerable periods of time, will, it is believed, philosophically account for the phenomena.  Tables of solar heat, rain guages, and scientific measures, to determine the fall of snow over the large continental era of the whole series of basins, are, therefore, the scientific means that should be employed before we can theorize properly.  As to periodical rises, actually observed, they are believed to be the very measure of these phenomena, namely, the fall of atmospheric moisture, and the concurrent intensity of solar heat between the unknown periods of the rise.

The fluctuations in Lake Michigan and the Straits of Michilimackinack are capable of being accounted for on a separate theory, namely, the theory of lake winds.