INDIANAPOLIS, Aug. 1.--With neither outlet nor inlet that is at any
time visible, Lake Cicott, a small body of water in Cass County, has
now reached a height which it attains every seven years, and hundreds
of acres of fine corn land are covered by several feet of water. The
rural mail route, which runs along the lake’s banks, has been abandoned
by the carrier, for the water covers it to a depth of three feet and
stretches beyond for several hundred yards.
Lake Cicott has been an interesting phenomenon to the people of
northern Indiana for many years, but the secret of its rise and fall
has never been discovered. It is the only Lake in Cass County and is
about one mile wide and about one mile long. The water is clear and
cold and perfectly fresh. Its most mysterious characteristic is the
fact that it overflows its banks every seventh year. The farmers who
own the land upon its banks have become so used to this that they never
attempt to cultivate the land in the seventh year, but give it up
without protest, as they know it is sure to be claimed by the waters.
The Pottawattomie Indians who inhabited what is now Cass and adjoining
counties were familiar with the characteristic of the lake. They
believed that its bottom was inhabited by a powerful spirit, which at
intervals of seven years caused the lake to overflow. They construed
this action as approval of the tribe by the spirit, and watched
anxiously for the time to come, for they saw in the rising waters
a sure indication that they had done nothing to displease it. The
early white settlers became acquainted with the legend and the oldest
inhabitant is not able to recall a time that the overflow did not take
place when expected.
The water has now reached its highest point, and will soon begin
to recede and continue to do so till the old confines are reached.
Residents of the locality say that the weather conditions have no
effect upon the lake, for its rise in the seventh year takes place
regardless of the fact of rain or drouth. Amos Jordan, a veteran of the
civil war, who lives on a bluff overlooking the lake, says the only
apparent difference between wet and dry seasons when the rise occurs
is that the water appears to be colder in time of drouth. What is true
of the rise of the waters is also true of their recession, for they
gradually disappear regardless of the amount of rainfall in the county.
The phenomenon is explained on the theory that there is a subterranean
outlet, which becomes closed in some way and is opened by the pressure
of the water when the highest point is reached every seventh year; but
this is mere guesswork and nothing has ever been discovered to justify
such a theory. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company, which owns a number
of ice-houses on the edge of the lake, made soundings at different
places before the rise began, and found the greatest depth to be ninety
feet.
* * * * *
Hundreds more of such clippings have been preserved in a scrap book
describing similar phenomena all over the Earth, all of which seem
solvable through claims herein set forth, in the combined influences
of frictional and volcanic heat, and the occasional contact with
outpouring streams from the _internal_ ocean of fresh water.