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Milwaukee County

The Milwaukee Bay is a semi=circular indentation of Lake Michigan, at Milwaukee, about six miles across and three miles deep. The north and south points or capes protect the shipping from the effects of all storms or gales of wind except those from the east, which seldom occur. The bottom is clay, affording good anchorage ground. The mouth of the river is about half a mile below the middle of this bay. It is supposed by many that all the space between the mouth of the river and the town, now occupied by impassable marshes, was once a portion of this bay, and there are many facts that go to substantially or render probable this suggestion. It has been rounded to the depth of forty two feet without finding bottom: the apparent bottom a few feet below the surface being only an accumulation of the roots of grass and weeds floating on the water and soft mud below.