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Superior (LAKE the extreme W and most)

LAKE, the extreme W. and most extensive of the great lakes of the St. Lawrence basin, in North America, being the largest existing body of fresh water. It is of a triangular form, extending between lat. 40° 30′ and 49° N., and lon. 80° and 92° 20′ W. Its length, E. to W., is about 360 miles, with that its area may be taken at about a mean breadth of about 80 miles, so 28,600 square miles. The mean depth is estimated at 900 feet, and the height of its surface at about 640 feet above the Atlantic. rivers, but none is of much importance except the St. Louis which enters at its S. W. extremity, and the Riviere au Grand Portage. During the melting of the snow, these and the other rivers sweep into the lake vast quantities of It receives upward of 50 sand, bowlder stones, and drift timber.

It discharges itself at its E. extremity into Lakes Huron and Michigan, by the river and falls of St. Mary. This lake embosoms many large and well-wooded islands, the chief of which is Isle Royal.

The country of the N. and E. is a mountainous embankment of rock, from 200 to 1,500 feet in height; the climate unfavorable, and the vegetation slow and scanty. On the S. the land is also high, generally sandy, sterile, and the coast dangerous, subject to storms, and sudden transitions of temperature, and to fogs and mists.

The mean heat in June and July is about 65° F., but an extremely cold winter prevails.

The boundary line between Canada and the United States passes from Lake