Most of our surveying was done by actual measurement, the surveying
instrument being used only to determine the exact direction of the
measurement. However, there were some measurements which we could not make
directly with the chain. For example, we wished to know just how far it
was from our tent to the Jersey shore of the river. We measured off a base
line along our shore 400 feet long and sighted to a point directly across
the river from our tent. The angle in front of our tent was 90 degrees,
and at the other end of the base line was 73 degrees. When we drew out our
triangle on the scale of 100 feet to the inch we found that the shorter
side directly in front of the tent was almost exactly 13 inches long. This
meant that the river at this point was 1,300 feet wide, nearly a quarter
of a mile. On the other side of the island we found, in the same way, that
the river at its narrowest point was about 500 feet wide. This portion of
the river we named Lake Placid, as the water was very still and quite
deep. This was due to a sort of natural dam formed at the lower end of our
island. The small island that Dutchy found was kite-shaped, with a tail of
boulders which extended almost all the way across to a rocky point on the
Pennsylvania shore. The channel between "Kite Island," as we called it,
and Willow Clump Island was not more than fifteen feet wide in some
places, and through this the water swept with a swift current down past a
narrow neck of land to join the main current. This narrow stretch of land
we named the Tiger's Tail, owing to its peculiar shape. It was in the hook
at the end of this tail that we discovered the old bridge wreck above
referred to. From the tip of the Tiger's Tail to Point Lookout, at the
extreme upper end of Willow Clump Island, it was a little under a
half-mile. The shore all along Lake Placid was very steep, except near
Point Lookout. At one place there was a shallow bay which we called the
lagoon.