THE TOPOGRAPHY AND HYDROGRAPHY IN ILLINOIS XXXV 



IROQUOIS RIVER 



Iroquois River is the chief tributary of the Kankakee in this 

 state. It rises in Jasper county, Indiana, flows southwest until it 

 reaches the center of Iroquois county, IlHnois. and then turns north, 

 emptying into the Kankakee at Waldron, Kankakee county. It is 

 about 100 miles long and has a watershed of 2,000 square miles, 

 much of w^hich is imperfectly drained. Fully 800 square miles, or 

 nearly half the basin, Hes in Indiana. This part is of the same type 

 as the Kankakee basin, marshy and sandy. Just before the river 

 reaches Watseka, Illinois, it crosses the Iroquois moraine, and then 

 traverses what was probably once a temporary lake-bed. Sand 

 banks, Hke those along the Kankakee, follow its valley. 



It is a much slower stream than the Kankakee in Illinois, but for 

 the first 1 2 miles in this state it falls only about two and a half feet 

 per mile. Below Watseka it descends still more gradually, falling 

 only 10 feet in the first 20 miles and another 10 feet in the last 9 

 miles of its cotirse. The Iroquois is about half the size of the Kan- 

 kakee above its junction. Although it rises in the sw^amp region, 

 it drains a much greater proportion of dry prairie land than the Kan- 

 kakee, and therefore is, comparatively, a "flashy" stream. Its fresh- 

 ets rise sooner, and they pass off before those of the main river. In 

 the region around Oilman, in the western part of the basin, are 

 many artesian wells which add materially to the flow of the river in 

 ordinary low water. 



ILLINOIS RIVER 



Measured by its relation to their industrial and civic interests, 

 the Illinois is by far the most important river to the citizens of this 

 state. Larger streams flow along our boundaries, but none affects 

 so closely the welfare of so many of our people. Indeed, from its 

 peculiar position and its relation to other waters, it has always been 

 an especially important stream. To the early explorers, traders, 

 and missionaries, as well as to the aborigines before them, it fur- 

 nished, together with the Des Plaines and the Chicago portage, one 

 of the most frequently traveled waterways through the interior of 

 the country, and the settlements along its banks were among the 

 earliest in the state. At a later period it became a useful commer- 

 cial highway, a function which it now seems certain to resume, at 

 no distant day, on a scale of national importance. Its yield of 

 fishery products is greater than that of all the other waters of the 

 state combined,* and it serves an indispensable purpose to the City 



*In 1899 the total value of the product of the fisheries of Illinois was $616,452, 

 and that of the fisheries of the Illinois River was $382,372. 



