Excerpt from The Levels of the Lakes as Affected by the Proposed Lakes and Gulf Waterway: A Discussion Before the Western Society of Engineers

For Oopies of these papers address the Citizens' Association, that the largest useful depth is feasible and within the resources and wisdom of the nation. If so grand a purpose is within engineering te source, all the relations Of a project which only approaches it in a minor and fractional degree can certainly be met, and it may well be so de signed that in a progressive development from present needs the greater purpose can in some future be realized.

The Illinois Michigan Canal, from Chicago to La Salle, 100 miles, was completed in 1848, and in 1871 the summit level was cut down so as to carry from 200 to 550 cubic feet per second by gravity, according to the stage of water in Lake Michigan. This reversed the current in the Chi cago River, and conducted to the valley, 30 miles from Chicago, the major portion of the sewage of the city so far as it was undecomposed by the time the canal was reached. The nuisance in the valley was so great that in 1882 the city was compelled to erect pumps of cubic feet capacity per second, and these have been operated to about 800 cubic feet during the past two years. The maximum capacity of the canal by pumping is about cubic feet.

At the present writing the sewage of about population and a host of waste-producing Industries is nominally tributary to the canal, but no inconsiderable proportion is quite decomposed before the canal is reached, and all is more or less oxidized, so that the condition Of the canal by no means represents the pollution which would be occasioned by fresh sewage. The present contribution to the Illinois Valley is the cause Of loud protests.

That some radical solution of the situation would be required has been recognized in some degree for ten years. In 1885 a committee of the Citizens' Association carefully reviewed all the feasible plans, and con cluded that a ship canal carrying a large volume of water to the Illinois was altogether the least expensive, and at the same time covered the costly section of a deep waterway to the Mississippi. The volume, so far as then discussed, was assumed at cubic feet per second.

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