Reclaiming the Swamp Lands 



301 



some important drainage work has been 

 done already through grants from the 

 state, especially to the Disston Company, 

 on the Kissimmee lands, whose Saint 

 Cloud plantation yielded over 6,000 

 pounds of dry sugar to the acre for an 

 entire month's run. These lands are in 

 the upper portion of the celebrated Ever- 

 glades which surround Lake Okeechobee, 

 in the central part of the state, and from 

 there stretch due south one hundred miles 

 to Cape Sable, varying from twenty to 

 forty miles in width and covering an area 

 of 3,700,000 acres. 



There are stretches of prairie land in 

 this, and there is considerable cypress 

 timber, but the most of it is a saw-grass 

 marsh with a soil from three to fifteen 

 feet in depth, covered with a few inches 

 of water the greater part of the year. 

 During an exceedingly dry season water 

 can only be found in the sloughs or 

 runs, which extend in every direction. 

 During and after the rainy season, which 

 usually extends from June to September, 

 when the Kissimmee Valley has poured 

 all of its rainfall into Lake Okeechobee 

 and filled up the "glades," it is quite easy 

 to get about through the tortuous chan- 

 nels — provided you use a small skiff. 



Along the eastern edge of the Ever- 

 glades there is a ledge of rotton lime- 

 stone, slightly higher than the surface of 

 the glades, which in a measure holds back 

 the water from overflowing the adjacent 

 lowlands. In order to drain the Ever- 

 glades it would be necessary to widen 

 and deepen the rivers where they have 

 cut through the rock reef, and then ex- 

 tend them by a system of canals until 

 Lake Okeechobee was reached. After 

 cutting through this rock reef nearly all 

 the excavation necessary would be 

 through sand and muck. 



THE DISMAL SWAMP 



The celebrated Dismal Swamp of Vir- 

 ginia is one of the well-known swamp 

 areas awaiting reclamation. This is an 



ordinarily elevated, nearly level land, 

 with such imperfect drainage that it re- 

 mains constantly inundated to a slight 

 depth. The swamp is practically on a 

 hillside, sloping gradually upward from 

 an altitude of twelve to twenty-two feet 

 above mean tide at its summit, near the 

 center of which is Lake Drummond — a 

 shallow, circular body of water about 2^ 

 miles in diameter and only five to six feet 

 in depth. The lake is surrounded by 

 woods, and at some points cypress trees 

 grow into the water, the depth of which 

 decreases rapidly through the swamp, 

 where it is rarely greater than ij4 feet, 

 and is usually but a few inches. Some of 

 the marginal portions of the swamp have 

 been drained and furnish excellent farm- 

 ing land. The original swamp at one 

 time included the Green Sea, but the Dis- 

 mal Swamp Canal has in measure drained 

 the intervening region, in which work the 

 branch Herring Canal has aided. This 

 indicates what may possibly be accom- 

 plished by the further construction of 

 drainage ditches. 



Another of the great swamps of the 

 United States is the Kankakee Marshes, 

 which cover about one-half million 

 acres distributed over seven counties 

 in northern Indiana. The swampy con- 

 dition of Kankakee Valley is due to a 

 slight fall in the valley and the extremely 

 crooked and tortuous channel of the 

 river. Between its source and the Illi- 

 nois State line the direct distance is 75 

 miles, whereas the stream flows a distance 

 of 240 miles, in the course of which it 

 makes at least two thousand bends. The 

 difference in elevation between these two 

 points is but 97 feet, or a fall of 1.2 feet 

 per mile. It is not improbable that a com- 

 plete topographic and drainage map cov- 

 ering the entire area, not only of the 

 Kankakee Valley, but the neighboring 

 uplands and drainage basins of the 

 Wabash and the northern tributaries of 

 Tippecanoe River, will develop drainage 

 possibilities superior to those found 

 within the Kankakee Valley alone. 



