A CENTURY OF GEOLOGY IN INDIANA. 93 



mer months. It is interesting to note also that what is now known as Monon 

 Creek, a tributary of the Tippecanoe and from which the town and railway 

 of the same name derived their names, was, in the Stansbury Report, called 

 the Motimonon River. 



The total length of the southern route as surveyed by Stansbury from the 

 mouth of the St. Joseph at Lake Michigan to the mouth of the Tippecanoe 

 where the canal would connect with the Wabash was found to be 157.7 miles; 

 the ascent and descent 127 and 171 feet, respectively; the number of locks 

 required, 37 and the estimate of the total cost, $1,895,904. 



In surveying the proposed "Northern Route" Stansbury found that the 

 most feasible connection between the St. Joseph of Lake Michigan and the 

 St. Joseph of the Maumee was by way of Pigeon River, a large branch of the 

 former. This stream he found had its source in a cluster of lakes, in one of 

 which, P''ish Creek, a tributary of the other St. Joseph, also had its rise. 



The following paragraph from the Stansbury report regarding the summit 

 level between the two streams, located in what is now Steuben County, is 

 of especial interest in this connection: 



"The country around the summit level, abounds in small lakes, from an 

 half to two miles in length, either connected together in chains, or separate 

 and alone, without any apparent inlet or outlet. They consist of the purest 

 spring water, are full of the finest fish, and are of immense depth (in one of 

 them, the bottom, as I have been informed, was sought in vain with a line of 

 250 yards). The soil of the surrounding country is a mixture of sand, clay 

 and gravel, indicating a bed of clay. Their supply from beneath being con- 

 stant, they do not appear to be affected by the drought of summer, but where 

 there are outlets, these are considerably swollen by the melting of the snows 

 and ice on their banks, in the spring." 



You will note that Stansbury did not sound the lake himself, but was 

 informed that it was more than 750 feet in depth. The truth is that, like the 

 lengths of the caves of Southern Indiana, the depths of the Northern Indiana 

 lakes are greatly exaggerated by the surrounding inhabitants. According to 

 their story many of them are "bottomless," or have deep holes in which it 

 is "impossible to find bottom." Their attempts at sounding were probably 

 made with an ordinary fishing line or the butt end of a cane pole. No one of 

 the local residents who has such beliefs has ever brought up a Chinaman's 

 queue on his fish hook or a new species of fish from the central regions of the 

 earth. The fact is that the deepest water in any lake of the State, and the 

 writer has sounded them all, is 121 feet in Tippecanoe Lake, Kosciusko 

 County. 



Stansbury found that the length of the proposed canal by the northern 

 route from Lake Michigan to Fort Wayne, where it was proposed to connect 

 it with the Wabash and Erie canal, would be 177.11 miles, its descent 553 

 feet, the number of locks required 69 and the estimated cost $1,860,468. 

 He states that the southern or Kankakee — Tippecanoe River route "is shorter 

 by more than twenty miles. It will require but 36 instead of 69 locks, thereby 



