The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1892-01-04
H. W. LADD CO.

obtained from Lake Michigan, as pure
source as any in the world, if taken at
favorable point, for any great body of
water tends to purify itself by settle
ment. Unfortunately Chicago's "crib"
from which water is pumped is only a
very little way out in the lake, and to-
ward that crib, intermingling with the
purer water, flows constantly foul and
sluggish stream from the unspeakably
vile Chicago river. The river itself is a
nuisance. The mingling, close off shore,
of sewage and water supply is terrible
danger True, new drainage route
has been surveyed, but the Inter Ocean
cheerfully remarks of the line adopted !:
lone would say that it had been laid
out by civil engineer who was acting
under instructions to get the least feast
BILE route possible" 1t is doubtful
whether the new sewer will be COM
pleted in time for the exposition. 1t
will help Chicago wonderfully, sweeten-
ing the river, and dumping the sewage
on the Mississippi side of the divide" }"
The disposition of Chicago's diluted
sewage is a little peculiar. Now it flows
through the great lakes and the ST. Law
renee and washes the shores of chilly
Newfoundland before passing out to open
sea. Along comes Mr.. Engineer with
his level and Signor Maccaroni with his
shovel and in year or SO the sewage
passes down the father of waters and
emerges finally past Cuba in the Gulf
stream. Off Nova Scotia it meets the
old track of the flow borne South by the
Arctic current in that hells kitchen of
fogs and counter currents and icebergs
which is the navigators terror.
These two currents, so widely diverg-
ent but coming at last to the sea where
all roads meet. suggest the lines along
which internal navigation should be
made to move more easily. Chicago
already has water connections with New
York, though demand, which must
some day be needed, is made for a ship
canal. But toward the Mississippi moth
Yet nature long ago marked out the
course which future navigation would
take from the great lakes to the gulf. 1t
was discovered by Indians countless
years ago, iediscovered and explored
with much flourish of trumpets by
Hennepin in 1880, and more mod
estly by Tonti and the un-
named hunters and fur-traders who
threaded the Western wilds when Bos-
ton was yet village. The Illinois river
is at Chicago not more than ten miles
away from the lake front. Just as the
sewage of the city is to be ditched over
into the Mississippi watershed, so one
day will big canal connect lake and
river and follow the l,tter's easy course
through level country to the
Mississippi. The grade is not diff
cult. Hennepin described the river
as "broad and deep as the Seine at
Paris" and adds, 1.-THE current of the
river is not perceptible, except in time
of great rains; il is at all times naviga-
BILE for large barks about a hundred
leagues from its mouth to the Illinois
village"-or about as far mp ms Ottawa
or La Sale: but Hennepin's measure
ments Were a. vague as his dates and
calculations of latitude were untrust-
worthy. At any rate the stream was
and is easily followed by canal running
in the alluvial soil between the bluffs,
and the wedding Of the lakes and the
river would be accomplished, and Du-
luth wheat sent TO New Orleans 10y
water. the Chicago river madesto run
backward. and the Lake city's water and
sewage problems disposed of together.
That is the Hennepin Canal scheme.
It will be put through some day by the
State. the city and the nation. and it's q
pity it can't be done before 1898.