[125] GREEN BAY. This town has just (1854) been incorporated as a city, the anticipations respecting it having been slow in being realized. It has now an estimated population of 3,000, with several churches in a healthy and flourishing state, two printing presses, a post-office, collectorship, and thriving agricultural and commercial advantages, which will be fully realized when the internal improvements in process of construction through the Fox and Wisconsin valleys are finished. Its extreme salubrity has, it seems, been disregarded by emigrants. The singular configuration of this bay appears to be the chief cause of the appearances of a tide at the point where it is entered by Fox River. This phenomenon was early noticed by the French. La Hontan mentions it in 1689. Charlevoix remarks on it in 1721, and suggests its probable cause, which is, in his opinion, explained by the fact that Lakes Michigan and Huron, alternately empty themselves into each other through the Straits of Michilimackinac. The effects of such a flux and reflux, under the power of the winds, would appear to place Green Bay in the position of a siphon, on the west of Lake Michigan, and go far to account for the singular fluctuations of the current at the mouth of the Fox River. On reaching this spot of the rising and falling of the lake waters, Governor Cass caused observations to be made, which he greatly extended at a subsequent period.[126] These give no countenance to the theory of regular tides, but denote the changes in the level of the waters to be eccentrically irregular, and dependent, so far as the observations extend, altogether on the condition of the winds and currents of the lakes. [126] American Journal of Science, vol. xvii. Something analogous to this is perceived in the Baltic, which has no regular tides, and therefore experiences no difference of height, except when the wind blows violently. "At such times," says Pennant,[127] "there is a current in and out of the Baltic, according to the points they blow from, which forces the water through the sound, with the velocity of two or three Danish miles in the hour. When the wind blows violently from the German Sea, the water rises in several Baltic harbors, and gives those in the western tract a temporary saltness; otherwise, the Baltic loses that other property of a sea, by reason of the want of tide, and the quantity of vast rivers it receives, which sweeten it so much as to render it, in many places, fit for domestic use." [127] Arctic Geology. CHAPTER XVIII. The expedition traces the west shores of Lake Michigan southerly to Chicago--Outline of the journey along this coast--Sites of Manitoowoc, Sheboigan, Milwaukie, Racine, and Chicago, being the present chief towns and cities of Wisconsin and Illinois on the west shores of that Lake--Final reorganization of the party and departure from Chicago.