PARK SITES CHOSEN 133 
1896 the engineers of the department had advised that the 
raising of the lake for the purpose of improving the appear- 
ance of the surface and retarding the growth of rushes, 
ete., from the bottom, was of doubtful utility. On May 14, 
1900, Engineer M. R. Sherrerd, in a special report to the 
commission, recommended the raising of the lake level five 
feet by obstruction to be placed in the outlet. The landscape 
architects, in their report at the same time, emphatically 
disapproved of this plan of treatment, stating at length the 
legal, engineering and esthetic objections. It would be 
experimental, they contended. Percolation of the water 
through the raised banks might make the result uncertain. 
It would “inevitably destroy the handsomest and most val- 
uable part of the beautiful fringe of fine forest trees now 
existing most of the way around the lake.” The resulting 
loss of water flowing from the lake, under the binding con- 
tract between the Park Commission and the Lehigh Valley 
Company of June 4, 1897, and with the Pennsylvania Com- 
pany, that the commission would “not directly or indirectly 
do, or cause to be done, anything which would in any man- 
ner interfere with the natural flow of the waters of said 
Bound Creek,” should the raising the lake seriously dimin- 
ish or stop the overflow, would make the Park Commission 
“liable to prosecution.” 
As the loss of water from raising the lake five feet was by 
the engineer estimated at 550,000 gallons per day of a nor- 
mal minimum flow of only 1,500,000 gallons daily, the 
point thus raised may at any time become a most serious 
one, and result in heavy claims for damages against the 
county. 
COST OF PARK. 
The estimated cost of dredging and properly treating the 
banks of the lake at its natural level was $250,000; and for 
raising the lake five feet, cleaning out the bogs, etc., with 
the destruction of the best part of the wooded banks and 
the prospective litigation with the railroad companies in- 
volved in this plan of treatment, was $50,000, 
