<P> Wreckage of SS Cyprus--a 420 - foot (130 m) ore carrier that sank on October 11, 1907, during a Lake Superior storm in 77 fathoms (460 ft or 140 m) of water--was located in August 2007 . All but Charles G. Pitz of Cyprus's 23 crew perished . The ore carrier sank in Lake Superior on her second voyage, while hauling iron ore from Superior, Wisconsin, to Buffalo, New York . Built in Lorain, Ohio, Cyprus was launched August 17, 1907 . </P> <P> In 1918 the last warships to sink in the Great Lakes, French minesweepers Inkerman and Cerisoles, vanished in a Lake Superior storm . With 78 crewmembers dead, their sinking marked the largest loss of life on Lake Superior to date . </P> <P> SS Edmund Fitzgerald was the latest major shipwreck on Lake Superior, sinking 15 nautical miles (28 km; 17 mi) from Whitefish Point in a storm on November 10, 1975 . The wreck was immortalized by Gordon Lightfoot in his ballad "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". All 29 crew members perished when the ship sank, and no bodies were ever recovered . Edmund Fitzgerald was swallowed up so intensely by Lake Superior that the 729 - foot (222 m) ship split in half; her two pieces are approximately 170 feet (52 m) apart in a depth of 91 fathoms 4 feet (550 ft or 170 m). </P> <P> According to legend, "Lake Superior seldom gives up her dead". This is because of the unusually low temperature of the water, estimated at under 36 ° F (2 ° C) on average around 1970 . Normally, bacteria feeding on a sunken decaying body will generate gas inside the body, causing it to float to the surface after a few days . However, Lake Superior's water is cold enough year - round to inhibit bacterial growth, and bodies tend to sink and never resurface . This is alluded to in Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" ballad . Fitzgerald adventurer Joe MacInnis reported that, in July 1994, explorer Frederick Shannon's Expedition 94 to the wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald discovered and filmed a man's body near the port side of her pilothouse, not far from the open door, "fully clothed, wearing an orange life jacket, and lying face down in the sediment ." </P>

What is the coldest of the great lakes