686

PAPERS RELATING TO WESTERN NEW-YORK.

let down under the surface, is filled with cool and pure water. It is navigated by a sloop and perriauger,besides boats, and by its outlet boats proceed by Seneca and Onondago rivers to Schenectady . Fromthis lake also, boats proceed by Seneca and Oswego river into lake Ontario , and from thence toMontreal , &c. From the head of this lake, there is a Carrying place of 22 miles by land, to Newtown,on Tioga river, to which place considerable quantities of produce are transported, and from whencethey are floated to markets on the Susquehanna river .

Crooked lake is situated 8 miles west from Seneca lake, is 20 miles long, and 2 or 3 miles wide.From this lake there is a carrying place of 7 miles to the Conhocton river, where it is boatable in springand in fall to the Susquehanna . A considerable part of the lands adjoining it are reported to be of thebest quality. Canandarqua lake is situated 20 miles west from Seneca lake, is nearly 20 miles in length,and 2 miles in breadth.

Chataughqua lake is situated near lake Erie , and is nearly 15 miles in length. The lands near thislake are very rich.

Mud lake, Honeyoy, Hemlock and Canesus lakes are situated from 10 to 35 miles west from Senecalake, are from 6 to 10 miles long, and from them are easy carrying places by land to the boatable■waters of Susquehanna .

The climate appears to be subject to changes, which is probably caused by the neighbourhood of theimmense bodies of water contained in the lakes by which this Country is partly bounded. Theselakes also are probably the cause of the mildness of the climate in summer and winter ; for the airpassing over extensive bodies of water which are of nearly the same degree of coldness in summer asin winter, and freeze not in winter, is more uniform in its temperature than it would be if it passedover land. The northerly and westerly winds 'which occasion an extraordinary coldness in winter,spring and fall, on the East side of the Alleghany mountains, by-blowing from the high and coldtract of country composed of those mountains, are tempered in this country by passing over the extensivebodies of w r ater which are situated on the northern and western bounds; and the south wind does notproduce those frequent changes in winter which are injurious to the raising of grain in the easterlyparts of the states.—Whilst the neighbourhood of these lakes also renders the air in summer cool andtemperate ; and the nights, very few excepted, are so cool as to admit of sleeping under blankets. Theheat of summer in this country is accordingly more temperate than in the eastern parts of the states,which are situated even in a more northerly latitude; and the frosts in winter are remarked as lessviolent than in the middle states.

In most parts the climate is healthy, particularly as a newly settled country, of which an incon-siderable part is yet improved ; though in the neighbourhood of marshes and stagnated waters theinhabitants are subject to agues and other bilious complaints. Once in three or four years, as is the casein most countries, it has been sickly in many parts. The fall of 1801, was probably as sickly a seasonas any one since the earliest settlement; which is imputed to an uncommon wetness of the weather,occasioning much stagnated water. The prevailing sickness, which was the bilious fever, proved howevernot very mortal to the sick; and the number of deaths was most probably not more than one for everytwo hundred inhabitants.

Trees usually put forth leaves, the earliest sorts in the first w T eek of May, and oak and other later sortsnear the 25 th of that month. Corn is planted from the 15 th to the 25 th and by some near the 1 st ofMay. Rye begins to ripen, and hay is begun to be cut near the 4 th of July, and near the 20^ Julywheat harvest is begun. Water commonly begins to be frozen near the first w'eek of October, and snowusually falls near the 20th of November ; but cattle are sometimes kept in pasture until January, and onthe flats of Genesee, nearly the whole winter. Snow commonly lies about nine inches deep. In thebeginning of the year 1800, snow fell in most places about three feet deep but there is no other

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