Seneca Guns: The Booms Over the Finger Lakes, and the 'Legend' Cooper Made Up
For two centuries people around New York's Seneca Lake, and later the Carolina coast, have heard deep booms like distant cannon. The USGS says many booms are human-made and some are tiny, shallow earthquakes. The famous “Seneca legend” about them comes from an 1850 James Fenimore Cooper story written as political satire.