Pond vs Lake

[Martin]

I have visited many bodies of water and I have looked at the High Peak map tons of times, but lately I've been trying to figure out how they went about naming a lake "a lake" and a pond "a pond". My idea was always that a water sources runs in or out of a lake, but a pond is a stagnant body of water. Usually lakes are also bigger than ponds on average. But in the High Peaks, all of this does not add up. An example is Lake Arnold vs Chapel Pond.

Does anybody here know how the titles of a body of water were given?

[Kevin]

I believe it has something to do with the depth of the water. I'm not sure there's a size/circumference requirement.

[redhawk]

A true pond is a body of water that was artificially formed usually as a result of a dam.

A Lake is a large body of salt or fresh water surrounded by land.

So I guess what would be described as a lake, would become a pond if it were dammed

unless of course it was created as a result of a dam in which case it would really be a resevoir

but then if it didn't create a RESERVE of water would it be a pond?

Hope that clarified things for everyone!

[Martin]

Complicated...yet interesting.

Now why is Marcy Dam not a pond? It should be called Marcy Pond... we should re-title the whole thing...

[sacco]

the difference between a pond and a lake is simply whatever the body of water is named.

it's the same as the difference between a stream, a kill (dutch for stream), a river, a creek, or a run. there's a general size guideline - but it's really just whatever it was named.

[Martin]

the difference between a pond and a lake is simply whatever the body of water is named.

it's the same as the difference between a stream, a kill (dutch for stream), a river, a creek, or a run. there's a general size guideline - but it's really just whatever it was named.

Now that's disapointing... but it's what I thought.

Up here, almost everything's a lake... and I'm sure Sacco has pissed in a couple of them.

[Kevin]

Up here, almost everything's a lake... and I'm sure Sacco has pissed in a couple of them.

[redhawk]

the difference between a pond and a lake is simply whatever the body of water is named.

it's the same as the difference between a stream, a kill (dutch for stream), a river, a creek, or a run. there's a general size guideline - but it's really just whatever it was named.

And what are you, some kind of Hydraulic Engineer?

BTW you get my email since you phoned me?

[sacco]

dam right.

keep it up martin and i'll piss in a lot more of them.


hawk - yup, and that's how i know how stupid the naming "convention" (or lack of) is.

and i just checked/ responded to the email.

[Dick]

Speaking of naming "conventions" for bodies of water, does anyone know how Grizzle Ocean (Pharaoh Wilderness) got its name?

[fvrwld]

I've been told that on a pond the sun reaches the bottom of the entire body of water and on a lake it doesn't.
Not always true.

[trailhed]

Speaking of naming "conventions" for bodies of water, does anyone know how Grizzle Ocean (Pharaoh Wilderness) got its name?

Sarcasm had alot to do with it.
Grizzle was the name of a guy (I think his name was Tom Grizzle but don't quote me) who fished in what is now Grizzle Ocean. Aparently he bragged so much about how big the fish were there that his friends starting calling it Grizzle's Ocean. For whatever reason the name stuck.
About the ponds and lakes thing. One thing I've read is that in the early days on Adirondack guiding a lot of bodies of water didn't have names and it was early fishing guides who gave them names. Supposedly if the fishing was good, these guides would give the lakes-ponds bad sounding names so other guides wouldn't be tempted to take their clients there. That's why there are so many Mud Ponds and the like which are actually pretty nice lakes.

[sacco]

there's also alot of goldmine creeks that were named just to entice buyers back in the 19th century.

some were so bad as to actually plant fake worn down old mining equipment along the creek - all just to trick potential buyers.

[sacco]

oh ya, and as dissapointing as i'm sure it is to many peeps out there, the stoner lakes were named after nick - not the state of mind.

[Adk Keith]

OK Folks you asked...

I consulted my Ecology of Inland Waters and Estuaries, Reid and Wood, (c) 1976, Chapt. 3, Lake Basins and Lakes, Pg 31. and they said:

It is harder to distinquish lakes from ponds, because neither term is nessarily restricted to any one kind of environment. Lakes and ponds are formed in a number of diffferent ways, both natural and artificial. With the passage fo time, they change in character, ultimately silting up and becoming gransformed to wetland or meadow. Bodies of standing water also change in character as you travel from north to south. For all these reasons there can be no hard and fast difference between a "lake" and a "pond". Moreover, local usage further complicates the issue: the large lakes of Maine and the Adirondacks are refered locally as "ponds", whereas certain streaches of Florida's slow moving St. Johns River are called "lakes", although they are flowing, rather than standing, waters.

For our purposes we can relay on a basic distinction between large expances of open water, on the one hand, and small bodies of water (often thickly filled with plant growth) on the other. These represent two extreme conditions but they will serve as a basis for out working definition. For laymen and scientists alike the term pond generally suggests a small, quiet body of standing water, usually shallow enough to permit the growth of rooted plants from one shore to the other. Larger bodies of standing water, occupying distinctive basins, we will refer to as lakes...

So there you go. No closer to a definition than we were before.

I do remember that one definition of a lake was that it must be deep enough to seasonally stratify and have a spring and fall turn over.