The large traffic on Lake Erie has brought into existence a number of important harbours on the south shore, nearly all artificially made and deepened, with entrances between two breakwaters running into the lake at right angles to the coast line. The principal of these are Toledo, Sandusky, Huron, Vermilion, Lorain, Cleveland, Fairport, Ashtabula, Conneaut, Erie (a natural harbour), Dunkirk and Buffalo, Rondeau, Port Stanley, Port Burwell, Port Dover, Port Maitland and Port Colborne. The Miami and Erie canal, leading from Maumee river to Cincinnati, 24412 m., with a branch to Port Jefferson, 14 m., with locks 90 by 15 by 4 ft., connects with Lake Erie through Toledo. The Erie canal leading from Buffalo to the Hudson river at Troy, and connecting with Lake Ontario at Oswego, had a capacity for boats 98 ft. long, 17 ft. 10 in. beam, with 6 ft. draught, until in 1907 the State of New York undertook its deepening to accommodate boats of 1000 tons capacity. Buffalo from its position at the eastern limit of deep draught lake navigation is a city of first rate commercial importance. Its harbour is formed by an artificial breakwater, built parallel with the shore about half a mile distant from it. It receives practically all the Lake Erie grain shipments besides large quantities of iron ore, lumber and copper, and is a large shipping port for coal, principally anthracite. It has over 600 m. of railway tracks to accommodate lake freights. The Welland canal, 2634 m. long, connecting Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, with locks 270 by 45 by 14 ft., leaves Lake Erie at Port Colborne, where the Canadian government have constructed an artificial harbour and elevators for transhipment of grain from upper lake freighters to lighters of canal capacity.
Fishing operations are carried on extensively in Lake Erie, the fish being taken with gill nets, seines and pound nets. Each state touching the lake has its own fishery regulations, which differ amongst themselves as well as from those of the Dominion. Both nations maintain a Fishery Protection Service, and the fisheries are replenished from artificial hatcheries. The most numerous and valuable fish are the lesser white fish (Coregonus artedi, Le Sueur), pickerel (Stizostedion vitreum, Walb.), pike (Lucius lucius, L.), and white fish (Coregonus clupeiformis, Mitchill), in the order named. The fish caught are estimated to be worth annually $1,000,000. They are collected in fishing tugs and distributed by rail throughout the United States and Canada.
Bibliography.—Bulletin No. 17, Survey of Northern and North-western Lakes, U.S. Lake Survey Office, War Dept. (Detroit, 1907); U.S. Hydrographic Office, Publication No. 108D, Sailing Directions for Lake Erie, &c. (Washington, 1902); Sailing Directions for the Canadian Shore of Lake Erie, Department of Marine and Fisheries (Ottawa, 1897); J. O. Curwood, The Great Lakes (New York, 1909); E. Channing and M. F. Lansing, The Great Lakes (New York, 1909). (W. P. A.)
ERIE, a city, a port of entry, and the county-seat of Erie
county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on Lake Erie, 148 m. by rail
N. of Pittsburg and near the N.W. corner of the state. Pop.
(1890) 40,634; (1900) 52,733, of whom 11,957 were foreign-born,
including 5226 from Germany and 1468 from Ireland, and 26,797
were of foreign parentage (both parents foreign-born), including
13,316 of German parentage and 4203 of Irish parentage;
(1910 census) 66,525. Erie is served by the New York,
Chicago & St Louis, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the
Erie & Pittsburg (Pennsylvania Company), the Philadelphia &
Erie (Pennsylvania railway), and the Bessemer & Lake Erie
railways, and by steamboat lines to many important lake ports.
The city extends over an area of about 7 sq. m., which for the
most part is quite level and is from 50 to 175 ft. above the lake.
Erie has a fine harbour about 4 m. in length, more than 1 m. in
width, and with an average depth of about 20 ft.; it is nearly
enclosed by Presque Isle, a long narrow strip of land of about
3000 acres from 300 ft. to 1 m. in width, and the national government
has protected its entrance and deepened its channel by
constructing two long breakwaters. Most of the streets of the
city are 60 ft. wide—a few are 100 ft.—and nearly all intersect
at right angles; they are paved with brick and asphalt, and
many in the residential quarters are shaded with fine elms and
maples. The city has four parks, in one of which is a soldiers’
and sailors’ monument of granite and bronze, and not far away,
along the shore of lake and bay, are several attractive summer
resorts. Among Erie’s more prominent buildings are the
United States government building, the city hall, the public
library, and the county court house. The city’s charitable
institutions consist of two general hospitals, each of which has
a training school for nurses; a municipal hospital, an orphan
asylum, a home for the friendless, two old folks’ homes, and a
bureau of charities; here, also, on a bluff, within a large enclosure
and overlooking both lake and city, is the state soldiers’ and
sailors’ home, and near by is a monument erected to the memory
of General Anthony Wayne, who died here on the 15th of
December 1796.
Erie is the commercial centre of a large and rich grape-growing and agricultural district, has an extensive trade with the lake ports and by rail (chiefly in coal, iron ore, lumber and grain), and is an important manufacturing centre, among its products being iron, engines, boilers, brass castings, stoves, car heaters, flour, malt liquors, lumber, planing mill products, cooperage products, paper and wood pulp, cigars and other tobacco goods, gas meters, rubber goods, pipe organs, pianos and chemicals. In 1905 the city’s factory products were valued at $19,911,567, the value of foundry and machine-shop products being $6,723,819, of flour and grist-mill products $1,444,450, and of malt liquors $882,493. The municipality owns and operates its water-works.
On the site of Erie the French erected Fort Presque Isle in 1753, and about it founded a village of a few hundred inhabitants. George Washington, on behalf of the governor of Virginia, came in the same year to Fort Le Bœuf (on the site of the present Waterford), 20 m. distant, to protest against the French fortifying this section of country. The protest, however, was unheeded. The village was abandoned in or before 1758, owing probably to an epidemic of smallpox, and the fort was abandoned in 1759. It was occupied by the British in 1760, but on the 22nd of June 1763 this was one of the several forts captured by the Indians during the Conspiracy of Pontiac. In 1764 the British regained nominal control and retained it until 1785, when it passed into the possession of the United States. The place was laid out as a town in 1795; in 1800 it became the county-seat of the newly-erected county of Erie; it was incorporated as a borough in 1805, the charter of that year being revised in 1833; and in 1851 it was incorporated as a city. At Erie were built within less than six months most of the vessels with which Commodore Oliver H. Perry won his naval victory over the British off Put-in-Bay on the 10th of September 1813.
ERIGENA, JOHANNES SCOTUS (c. 800–c. 877), medieval
philosopher and theologian. His real name was Johannes
Scotus (Scottus) or John the Scot. The combination Johannes
Scotus Erigena has not been traced earlier than Ussher and
Gale; even Gale uses it only in the heading of the version of
St Maximus. The date of Erigena’s birth is very uncertain, and
there is no evidence to show definitely where he was born. The
name Scotus, which has often been taken to imply Scottish
origin, really favours the theory that he was an Irishman according
to the then usage of Scotus or Scotigena. Prudentius, bishop
of Troyes, definitely states that he was of Irish extraction. The
pseudonym commonly read Erigena, used by himself in the
titles of his versions of Dionysius the Areopagite, is Ierugena
(in later MSS. Erugena and Eriugena), formed apparently on
the analogy of Graiugena (“Greek-born”), which he applies
to St Maximus. There seems no reason to doubt that Eriugena
is connected with Erin, the name for Ireland, and Ierugena
suggests the Greek ἱερός, ἱερὸς, νῆσος being a common name
for Ireland. On the other hand, William of Malmesbury prefers
to read Heruligena, which would make Scotus a Pannonian,
while Bale says he was born at St David’s, Dempster connects
him with Ayr, and Gale with Eriuven in Hereford. Some early
writers thought there were two persons, John Scotus and John
Erigena.
Of Erigena’s early life nothing is known. Bale quotes the story that he travelled in Greece, Italy and Gaul, and studied
