71 



(1) Purity of water. 



(2) Adequacy of supply. 



(3) Elevation. 



(4) Cost of construction. 



The purpose of this paper is to show that the Kankakee river furnishes 

 a satisfactory answer to these questions. 



The river takes its rise in the marsh land near South Bend, in St. Joseph 

 county, Indiana, at an elevation of seven hundred and twenty feet above 

 sea level, and by an extremely crooked course through Indiana, enters Illi- 

 nois a few miles east of Momence. The length of the river in Indiana is 

 nearly two hundred and fifty miles. 



According to a survey made by the author of this paper for the State of 

 Indiana in 1882 this channel could be reduced for better drainage to less 

 than one hundred miles. 



The chief tributary of the Kankakee is Yellow river, which rises in the 

 eastern part of Marshall county. 



The country adjacent to the river is a broad plain, varying in width from 

 one to twenty miles, along the borders of which are sand ridges which give 

 to the region the designation of the Kankakee ^'alley, and which have pro- 

 duced the erroneous impression that the marsh is a low irreclaimable 

 swamp, whereas the fact is that it is an elevated plateau with a mean level 

 of ninety feet above Lake Michigan and six hundred and seventy feet above 

 the ocean. 



The plateau has a slope westward of one foot per mile. 



The water of the Kankakee is remarkably pure and clear, and is regarded 

 by all who have used it as exceptionally healthful. 



Iron is found in solution, which doubtless adds value to the water for 

 general purposes. 



The bed of the Kankakee and of its tributaries generally is fine sand and 

 gravel, and the underlying strata throughout the valley are fine sand in- 

 creasing to coarse gravel. Clay beds are rare and there is no stone along 

 the stream throughout Indiana. The overlying loam varies in thickness 

 from a few inches to several feet, and the surface generally is an unre- 

 claimed marsh in which coarse grass, wild rice and weeds grow in the great- 

 est luxuriance. 



The crookedness of the stream is readily explained by the instability of 

 the sandy strata through which it flows — the twelve inches of surface slope 

 being reduced to four inches, measured in the channel of the stream. 



