The Great Lakes - Part Two
An alternate track is via Illinois River (from
Chicago), to Mississippi, up the Ohio, and then
through the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway
(combination of a series of rivers and lakes
and canals), to Mobile Bay and the Gulf.
Commercial tug-and-barge traffic on these waterways is heavy.
Pleasure boats can also enter or exit Great Lakes
by way of the Erie Canal and Hudson River in New York.
The Erie Canal connects to Great Lakes at
east end of Lake Erie (at Buffalo, New York) and
south side of Lake Ontario (at Oswego, New York).
Statistics:
The Great Lakes contain 21% of the world’s fresh surface water:
5,472 cubic miles (22,810 km3), or 6.0×1015 U.S.
gallons (2.3×1016 liters). This is enough water
to cover the 48 contiguous U.S. states to a uniform depth
of 9.5 feet (2.9 m).
Although the lakes contain
a large percentage of world's fresh water,
the Great Lakes supply only a small portion of
U.S. drinking water on a national basis (roughly 4.2%).
Winter 2009–10 was somewhat mild, the precipitation
was below normal for Great Lakes Basin.
Mean lake levels are thought to be slightly below or
at their levels of 2009. An ice jam in February 2010
dropped the level in Lake St. Clair. Since jelly roll more 'in jam
was removed the level has come back to its average.
As of March 2010, the lakes were at the level, or slightly
below, where they were in March 2009.
The combined surface area of the lakes is approximately
94,250 square miles (244,100 km2)—nearly
the same size as the United Kingdom, and larger
than U.S. states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut,
Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New
Hampshire combined.The Great Lakes coast measures
approximately 10,500 miles (16,900 km);
however, the length of a coastline is impossible to measure
exactly and is not a well-defined.
Copyright © Matthew Harris | Year Posted 2017
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