The Carlisle independent., 1907-11-21

The drainage canal is approximately 36 miles in length, and as completed is available from end to end as navi- gable waterway, capable of accommo- dating vessels drawing 20 feet of wa ter. The cost of the canal has been approximately $5O,0OO,0OO All the out lay has been borne by Chicago as a municipality, but it is understood that for commercial purposes the city is willing to give the national govern ment navigation control of it.
 For six miles the canal follows the Chicago river to it's head. Beyond that point it runs for 2S miles through earth and rock excavation to the Des- plaines river. It continues along the waterway for eight miles. In order to make the drainage canal a commer- cial waterway capable of floating yes sells of large tonnage. the engineers of the project expended $18,000,000 more than would have been necessary for sanitary purposes only. The canal would have met all of the drainage and natural watershed necessities at a considerably less depth than the 22 | feet at which it was carried out. The objective of the creators of the canal was not only to dispose of Chicago's sewage by diverting it from Lake
 Michigan, where < it threatened con- | tamination of the city water supply, but the establishment of a navigable
 waterway from the lake to the Mis- Let x,;o xlx
 It is from Lake Joliet that the next 1 step in the great lake to Gulf high
 way is expected to be taken. The ter
 ritory between Joliet and Grafton,
 above St. Louis, has been closely sur l veyed and series of pools CT artificial
 lakes has been mapped out to mark
 the levels along what is projected as
 the beginning of the great Fourteen
 feet through the valley water course. The first level will be the section be- tween Joliet and Utica, a distance of
 54 miles, with fall of 66 feet In this
 dictance it is estimated that three | pools, dams or locks will be necessary ] and that a 14-foot waterway easily can be maintained with a width of
 300 feet.
 | Between Utica and the mouth of the Illinois river, where it empties into the
 Mississippi river, at Grafton, is 227
 miles. The bed of the Illinois
 river along this distance is
 between six hundred and nine hundred
 feet wide. Along the route the federal
 government has already completed | 0kc To a
 14-foot depth here hydraulic dredging
 averaging seven feet will be neces-
 sary. This will necessitate the exca
 vation of 1O0,00O,000 cubic yards of
 soft earth, the estimated cost of which
 has been fixed by engineers at ST.
 100000.
 To Control Mississippi.
 | Between the mouth of the Illinois,
 at Grafton, and the harbor limits of
 St. Louis the distance down the Mis-
 sissippi river is 39 miles, In this
 stretch the Mississippi falls 21 feet. | It is the magnitude of keeping the
 great Mississippi tractable and within
 bounds and providing 14-foot chan
 nel from St. Louis to the Gulf of Mex
 ico that has given the greatest en- I gineers of the country pause. What | the completion of that undertaking l will cost no one professes to know ac- curately Surmises vary between $200,-
 000,000 and 400,000,000 A consider
 able percentage of the former sum has already been expended in piecemeal | improvements on the Father of Wa | ters. Engineers admit that much of this outlay has been practically vast ed because the work was not carried on along any we'll defined plan. It is for the laying out of general plan of Mississippi valley improvement that the business interests of the great Central West are now bending their energies.
 After surveying the territory be- tween Joliet and St. Louis board of army engineers few years ago es- timated that the cost of a 14-foot wa terway between those points would cost $31 100000. About the feasibility of continuing that stretch at the same depth as the Chicago drainage canal there is no doubt. The only questions to be considered are those of dredging and water supply.