Five Big Puddles

DID you ever wonder what an ant must think of us giants who tread on his ant-hills, or what he must think of a puddle of water?

There are five big puddles of water along the northern edge of the United States—at least they look like puddles on the map—as if a gigantic giant had left his wet umbrella standing and the water had trickled out over the land. We call these puddles “The Great Lakes,” for they are the biggest lakes on this side of the World, though a giant with legs a mile long would think them only puddles to wade across. Two of the lakes—the smallest two—I have already told you about. They are Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Two of the others also have Indian names, Lake Michigan, which means “Great Lake,” and Lake Huron. The Greatest Lake of all the Great Lakes is called Superior, which means simply Greater Lake, as we say a boy who is a better football player or who makes better marks is “superior” to some other boy. Lake Michigan is the only one of the Great Lakes that belongs entirely to the United States, as it is entirely inside of the United States. Half of the other four lakes belong to the country north of the United States—the country called Canada—because these other lakes are along the border between the two countries. The United States owns its side of each of these lakes and out to the middle; Canada owns its side and out to the middle.

Lake Superior is not only bigger, it is higher than the other lakes. It empties its water into Lake Huron through a little river called St. Mary’s, and in this river are falls. These falls in the St. Mary’s River are called St. Mary’s Jump, because the water jumps, jumps down. These falls are not nearly as high as Niagara Falls, but they are too high for boats to go over the jump, so men had to build canals with locks around the falls to lower boats down and raise them up from one lake to the other. As there are so many boats that want to go down and up, one canal was not enough to take care of all the boats that wanted to go round the falls, so men have built five canals round St. Mary’s Jump. St. Mary’s Jump in French is Sault Ste. Marie, and as this is so difficult to say, people simply call the falls Soo, the river Soo, and the canals Soo too.

Some of the boats on the Great Lakes are as big and fine as those on the ocean; and they have to be, for the Great Lakes are like small oceans. When you are out, far out, you cannot see land, and at times there are high waves and storms, just as at sea. The chief difference is that the water in the lakes is fresh, not salt.