File:Memorial, presented by the Trustees of the Sanitary District of Chicago to the Congress of the United States - deep waterway from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River at St. Louis (1904) (14782057954).jpg

Identifier: memorialpresente00chic (find matches)
Title: Memorial, presented by the Trustees of the Sanitary District of Chicago to the Congress of the United States : deep waterway from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River at St. Louis
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Chicago Sanitary District. Board of Trustees
Subjects: Inland navigation Canals
Publisher: (Chicago)
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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interests of navigation. Studies thus far made have proceeded fora depth of fourteen feet and a width of 300 feet. Three levels or pools will benecessary, and three dams or locks. A fourteen-foot channel, with locks designedfor an ultimate depth of twenty feet, can be.secured, it is estimated, for $10,000,000. THE LOWER ILLINOIS — UTICA TO THE MOUTH OF THE ILLINOIS. The problem of river improvement changes entirely again after Utica ispassed. From that city southward, the Illinois is an alluvial stream with a de-clivity so small as to be almost unique among American rivers, amounting to onlytwenty-eight feet in the natural river, and only thirtj^-two feet from the level ofthe pool formed by the Henry dam at LTtica bridge to the low water line of theMississipi^i. The stream bed is from 600 to 900 feet wide, and some 700 squaremiles of bottom lands are subject to overflow, the situation being comi3licated bybackwater from the Mississippi, which at extreme high water is on a level with
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Memorial to the Congress of the. United States. 29 natural low water thirty miles below Utiea. The banks are low, averaging notmore than twelve to fourteen feet above low water. There are four dams andlocks, two built by the state at Henry and Copperas Creek, and two by the UnitedStates at La Grange and Kampsville on this section. Experience in dredging the sand bars showed a reasonable permanence inresults, even with the smaller volumes of water, before the Chicago Sanitary andShip Canal was opened, but the volume was not sufficient to maintain a channelmore than four to six feet deep. In the last two years, since the sanitary canalwas opened, it has been possible to maintain a channel seven feet deep and 200feet wide, except at the mouth of the Illinois, without great trouble. When thefull flow of 10,000 cubic feet a second passes out of the canal, this depth will beincreased without further dredging. It is easy to see what a great effect thisvolume of water will have on the channel

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