 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) |
Montezuma Marsh is a marsh at the northern end of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Much of the marsh is part of the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, which is a major point on the route of many migratory birds, such as Canada geese and mallard ducks.
A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species. Marshes can often be found at the edges of lakes and streams, where they form a transition between the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. They are often dominated by grasses, rushes or reeds. If woody plants are present they tend to be low-growing shrubs. This form of vegetation is what differentiates marshes from other types of wetland such as swamps, which are dominated by trees, and mires, which are wetlands that have accumulated deposits of acidic peat.
Cayuga Lake is the longest of central New York's glacial Finger Lakes, and is the second largest in surface area and second largest in volume. It is just under 40 miles (64 km) long. Its average width is 1.7 miles (2.7 km), and it is 3.5 mi wide (5.6 km) at its widest point near Aurora. It is approximately 435 ft deep (133 m) at its deepest point.
The Finger Lakes are a group of 11 long, narrow, roughly north–south lakes in an area informally called the Finger Lakes region in Central New York, in the United States. This region straddles the northern and transitional edge, known as the Finger Lakes Uplands and Gorges ecoregion, of the Northern Allegheny Plateau and the Ontario Lowlands ecoregion of the Great Lakes Lowlands.
The Cayuga valley is an old preglacial valley, which once drained northward into the Ontario Valley. Cayuga Lake and Montezuma Marsh were partially created by the damming effect of huge quantities of glacial drift brought from the Laurentian Shield of Canada and the deepened Ontario valley. (Cayuga Lake was also deepened southward of the area of the marsh.) The valley is completely buried by a drumlin field between the marsh and Lake Ontario.
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth is currently in the Quaternary glaciation, known in popular terminology as the Ice Age. Individual pulses of cold climate are termed "glacial periods", and intermittent warm periods are called "interglacials" or "interstadials" with both climatic pulses part of the Quaternary or other periods in Earth's history.
The Ontarian River is the term used for the pre-glacial river that began the creation of the valley in Silurian age shales and limestones now occupied by Lake Ontario. The valley was greatly deepened by glacial action during the Ice age.
Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres, making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Its southern border with the United States, stretching some 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi), is the world's longest bi-national land border. Canada's capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
The marsh was a barrier to westward travel in colonial times as roads could not be built across it, with the technology of the time. The first major passageway was the Erie Canal, which was completed in 1825 but the digging of the section that crossed the marsh was one of the most difficult, with great loss of life due to mosquito borne fevers (possibly malaria). The cut was finally finished by digging it in the winter (also with great suffering, due to frostbite) when mosquitoes were dormant.
The Erie Canal is a canal in New York, United States that is part of the east–west, cross-state route of the New York State Canal System. Originally, it ran 363 miles (584 km) from where Albany meets the Hudson River to where Buffalo meets Lake Erie. It was built to create a navigable water route from New York City and the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. When completed in 1825, it was the second longest canal in the world and greatly affected the development and economy of New York, New York City, and the United States.
Mosquitoes are a group of about 3500 species of small insects that are flies. Within Diptera they constitute the family Culicidae. The word "mosquito" is Spanish for "little fly". Mosquitoes have a slender segmented body, a pair of wings, three pairs of long hair-like legs, feathery antennae, and elongated mouthparts.
Fever, also known as pyrexia and febrile response, is defined as having a temperature above the normal range due to an increase in the body's temperature set point. There is not a single agreed-upon upper limit for normal temperature with sources using values between 37.5 and 38.3 °C. The increase in set point triggers increased muscle contractions and causes a feeling of cold. This results in greater heat production and efforts to conserve heat. When the set point temperature returns to normal, a person feels hot, becomes flushed, and may begin to sweat. Rarely a fever may trigger a febrile seizure. This is more common in young children. Fevers do not typically go higher than 41 to 42 °C.
