E'RIE. The most southern of the ehain of five great lakes drained by the Saint Lawrence River States. Eastern Part. K It lies loetween lakes Huron and Ontario, receiving waters from the former through the Saint Clair River, Lake Saint Clair. and the Detroit River on the west, and discharging its waters into the latter through the Niagara River on the east. Lake Erie has a length of about 240 miles, in a northeast and southwest direction, and a breadth of front 30 to 58 miles. Its surface, which has an area of 9600 square miles, is 573 feet above the level of the sea and 326 feet above Lake Ontario; its mean depth is about 100 feet, and the greatest depth is only a little over 200 feet, this being the shallowest of the Great Lakes. Lake Erie is bounded on the north by the Canadian Province of Ontario, on the east and south by New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and on the northwest by Michigan, the boundary between the United States and Canada traversing it. Be sides receiving the drainage from lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron, it has a limited river vs . tem of its own, receiving among others the Grand from the north, the Maumee from the west, and the Sandusky and Cuyahoga from the south. The chief islands are in the western part, among them Put-in-Bay, Bass, Kelly, and Point Pelee islands.
Navigation on Lake Erie is rendered somewhat difficult, its comparative shallowness making it liable to a heavy ground-swell. Navigation is suspended wholly or in part during the winter season, on account of the ice. Lake Erie is con nected with Lake Ontario by the Welland Canal, around Niagara Falls, and with the Hudson and Ohio rivers by canals. Several large cities and important ports are situated on Lake Erie, chief of which are Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Sandusky, and Toledo; and Detroit, on the Detroit River, may be added to this list. The growth of these cities, especially of Cleveland and Buffalo, in the last half-century, has been remarkable. The commercial importance of Lake Erie has greatly increased in recent years, as it forms a link in the waterway from the West to the East, over which a great grain and iron movement takes place. Numerous large freight steamers and magnificently equipped passenger steamers ply upon its waters. Lake Erie was an important theatre of naval warfare in the War of 1812. See ERIE, BATTLE OF LAKE; GREAT LAKES.