PROBLEMS FROM LAND OCCUPANCY 175 



Devils Lake, N.D. 17 The level of Devils Lake dropped 

 progressively for more than 70 years. By 1940 the lake level 

 was 37 feet lower than in 1867, and the quantity of water 

 stored in the lake had dwindled from about 1,500,000 acre- 

 feet to less than 20,000. At the low level of 1940, stumps 

 were exposed in one of the separate pools ("Stump Lake"), 

 indicating that the lake had reached even lower stages and 

 probably dried up entirely, at some time since the Ice Age. 

 Since 1940 the trend has been upward, and in the spring 

 of 1950 the lake level was about 5 feet above the 1940 

 minimum. In May and June of 1950 the stream flow in a 

 broad region that includes Devils Lake reached flood pro- 

 portions, with disastrous results at Winnipeg, Canada. The 

 inflow to the lake in this period was sufficient to raise the 

 level more than 8 feet, to the highest point since 1925. 



In the past 10 years the water-level fluctuations in wells 

 near the lake have corresponded moderately with those of 

 the lake level. There may have been a progressive depletion 

 of ground-water storage in the 70 years prior to 1940, but 

 there are no records to confirm this possibility. 



The decline in lake levels has been attributed to the 

 change of much of the drainage basin from grassland to cul- 

 tivated land, but there is the question whether such a 

 change would not instead have caused increased runoff to 

 the lake; furthermore, there was only one farm in the 3,500- 

 square-mile drainage basin by 1880, and the lake level had 

 declined several feet before that year. The decline has also 

 been explained as resulting from killing off of vast buffalo 

 herds, which had been trampling and compacting the soil: 

 with their demise, infiltration has improved and the inflow 



17 References: Simpson, H. E., Physiography of the Devils Lake-Stump Lake 

 Region of North Dakota, N. D. Geol. Survey, 6th Bienn. 

 Rept., pp. 105-157, 1912; Geology and Ground-water Re- 

 sources of North Dakota, U.S. Geol. Survey Water-supply 

 Paper 598, pp. 190-191, 1929. 

 Swenson, H. A., "Chemical Character of Surface Waters in the 

 Devils Lake Basin, North Dakota," U.S. Geol. Survey, Mirneo. 

 rept., 1950, 46 pp. 



