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Ganoga Lake is a natural lake in Colley Township in southeastern Sullivan County in Pennsylvania, United States. Known as Robinson's Lake and Long Pond for most of the 19th century, the lake was purchased by the Ricketts family in the early 1850s and became part of R. Bruce Ricketts' extensive holdings in the area after the American Civil War. The lake is one of the highest in Pennsylvania, which led Ricketts to name it Highland Lake by 1874 and rename it Ganoga Lake in 1881; Pennsylvania senator Charles R. Buckalew suggested the name ''Ganoga'' from the Seneca language word for "water on the mountain".〔 The Ricketts built a stone house on the lake shore by 1852 or 1855; this served as a hunting lodge and tavern. In 1873 a large wooden addition was built north of the stone house, which became a hotel known as the North Mountain House. The hotel had one of the first summer schools in the United States in 1876 and 1877. A branch railroad line to the lake served the hotel and also hauled ice cut from the lake for refrigeration. The hotel closed in 1903, though the house remained the Ricketts family summer home. After the death of R. Bruce Ricketts in 1918, his heirs sold much of his to the state for Pennsylvania State Game Lands and Ricketts Glen State Park. The state tried to purchase the lake in 1957, but was outbid by a group of investors who turned the land around it into a private housing development; as such it is "off limits" to the public.〔 Ganoga Lake is on the Allegheny Plateau, just north of the Allegheny Front, in sedimentary rocks from the Pocono Formation. The Wisconsin Glaciation some 20,000 years ago changed the drainage patterns of the lake; this diverted its waters to Kitchen Creek and carved the 24 named waterfalls in Ricketts Glen State Park in the process. Ganoga Lake has a continental climate, with average monthly high temperatures ranging from in January to in July. Ganoga Lake's drainage basin is heavily forested and it is in an Important Bird Area. The lake and its surroundings have a variety of flora and fauna, although the ecosystem has been damaged by acid rain. ==Description== Ganoga Lake is a natural spring-fed lake just west of Pennsylvania Route 487 in southern Colley Township in southeastern Sullivan County, Pennsylvania. It is near the meeting point of Sullivan, Columbia and Luzerne counties, and is less than northwest of Ricketts Glen State Park. Ganoga Lake is on the Allegheny Plateau at an elevation of . William Reynolds Ricketts, who owned the lake in the first half of the 20th century, claimed it was the highest lake in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains; Petrillo repeats this in his history of the region, ''Ghost Towns of North Mountain''.〔〔Petrillo, p. 42.〕 While the United States Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System identifies Ganoga Lake as the second highest in Pennsylvania (after Siebert Lake in Somerset County, at ),〔A (search ) on the USGS GNIS system for lakes above in Pennsylvania finds only four: Siebert Lake (), Ganoga Lake (), Lopez Pond () in Sullivan County, and Lake Jean () in Luzerne County and Ricketts Glen State Park.〕 the Pennsylvania Audubon Society says Ganoga Lake is "the highest elevation natural lake in Pennsylvania".〔Gross, pp. 1–24.〕 Ganoga Lake has a long, narrow oval shape, oriented north-northwest to south-southeast. In 1936 William Reynolds Ricketts wrote that the lake has an average width of and is "about one mile long, lacking 600 to 700 ft." or about in length.〔 However, according to a 1917 Pennsylvania Water Resources Inventory Report, in its largest dimensions it is long () by wide.〔 It has an average depth of and a maximum depth of .〔 The drainage basin for the lake is an area of , and its capacity is ().〔Pennsylvania Water Supply Commission, p. 70.〕 A branch of Kitchen Creek flows from the southern end of the lake; downstream it enters Lake Jean in Ricketts Glen State Park. From there the water flows through Ganoga Glen and its 10 named waterfalls, then joins the main stem of the creek at Waters Meet; below this it flows over five more named waterfalls. Kitchen Creek is a tributary of Huntington Creek, which flows into Fishing Creek, which is a tributary of the Susquehanna River. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ganoga Lake」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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