neath, and by a few
brooks flowing into it. Consequently its water is remarkably pure, since
none of the surrounding settlements are permitted to send their sewage
into it.

The surface of Lake Chautauqua is 1350 feet above the level of the
ocean; said to be the highest navigable water in the United States. This
is not strictly correct, for Lake Tahoe on the boundary between Nevada
and California is more than 6000 feet above sea-level. But Tahoe is
navigated only by motor-boats and small steamers; while Lake Chautauqua,
having a considerable town, Mayville, at its northern end, Jamestown, a
flourishing city at its outlet, and its shores fringed with villages,
bears upon its bosom many sizable steam-vessels.

It is remarkable that while Lake Erie falls into the St. Lawrence and
empties into the Atlantic at iceberg-mantled Labrador and
Newfoundland, Lake Chautauqua only seven miles distant, and of more than
seven hundred feet higher altitude, finds its resting place in the warm
Gulf of Mexico. Between these two lakes is the watershed for this part
of the continent. An old barn is pointed out, five miles from Lake
Chautauqua, whereof it is said that the rain falling on one side of its
roof runs into Lake Erie and the St. Lawrence, while the drops on the
other side through a pebbly brook find their way by Lake Chautauqua into
the Mississippi.

Nobody knows, or will ever know, how this lake got its smooth-sounding
Indian name. Some tell us that the word means "the place of mists";
others, "the place high up"; still others that its form, two lakes with
a passage between, gave it the name, "a bag tied in the middle," or "two
moccasins tied together." Mr. Obed Edson of Chautauqua County, who made
a thorough search among old records and traditions, which he embodied in
a series of articles in _The Chautauquan_ in 1911-12, gives the
following as a possible origin. A party of Seneca Indians were fishing
in the lake and caught a large muskallonge. They laid it in their canoe,
and going ashore carried the canoe over the well-known portage to Lake
Erie. To their surprise, they found the big fish still alive, for it
leaped from the boat into the water, and escaped. Up to that time, it is
said, no muskallonge had ever been caught in that lake; but the eggs in
that fish propagated their kind, until it became abundant. In the Seneca
language, _ga-jah_ means fish; and _ga-da-quah_ is "taken out" or as
some say, "leaped out." Thus Chaut