SHELBY COUNTY. 457 



inches. A muchtlarger proportion of the forty inches than this cer- 

 tainly flows from the surface of the ground. 



It is but justice to the people of the county to call attention to some 

 facts connected with the history and present condition of Loramie Reser- 

 voir. As it Is, the people of the county do not feel kindly disposed 

 toward it. The ground covered by the water of this reservoir was covered 

 in part by the original forest when it was constructed. The forest was 

 not removed, but the trees surrounded by water died, and in the course 

 of time fell down, and now lie in great numbers beneath the water when 

 the water is high, and partly out of it when the water is low. This ex- 

 posure of the timber to the air in the late summer and the autumn 

 months causes, it is believed, the generation of a miasm which pervades 

 the whole region, rendering it unhealthy. The exposure of the logs to 

 the atmosphere, it is believed also, has been the cause of the destruction 

 of many tons of fine fish duTing the past two seasons. It seems, and 

 who will not say with justice ? to the people of the county, that the State 

 should do something to remedy the evils which they suffer from the causes 

 just mentioned. They think that the reservoir should be an attractive 

 rather than a repulsive body of water, that it should be a benefit rather 

 than an injury to the interests of the county. Now, when it is borne in 

 mind that there are hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of logs and other 

 sediment in the reservoir, and that all displaces as many cubic feet of 

 water, it is after all a question worthy to be considered, whether it would 

 not be economy to remove all this rubbish to have its room occupied by 

 water every year. How many hundred, perhaps thousand, times would 

 the water-soaked forest which lies beneath the reservoir, with the other 

 vast accumulations of vegetable matter and mud, fill one of the locks of 

 the canal ? This would be the measure of gain each year resulting from 

 the removal of all this material from the reservoir — for every look-full 

 of logs a lock-full of Avater would be gained. This would remove a nui- 

 sance from the county, and in some degree compensate for the withdrawal 

 of so large an area of land from cultivation, from improvement, from 

 tax paying. The importance of the reservoirs of the State as sources of 

 supply of fish, deserves to be mentioned here; not only the actual amount 

 of fish for the table to be procured from them, but as sources from which 

 the waters of the State may be re-stocked and kept supplied with young 

 fish. The reservoirs are at the head waters of our principal rivers, and, 

 with the present knowledge of artificial fish-breeding, could be made of 

 immense value to the State as sources of supply of fish for the rivers of 

 the State. 



The amount of water which could be made available for the canal de- 



