A DROWNED EMPIRE 



By Robert H. Chapman 



THE swamp issue has recently 

 appeared upon the legislative 

 horizon as a new and rather at- 

 tractive proposition. Until very recently, 

 federal reclamation of American mo- 

 rasses had not been considered seriously. 

 The National Geographic Magazine 

 last year published a general resume of 

 the drainage question by Mr H. M. 

 AYilson ;* but since then the subject has 

 taken shape with great rapidity, until 

 now it looks as though we might have 

 within the very near future a second 

 reclamation act, this time for the purpose 

 of removing the excess water from, 

 rather than supplying it to, agricultural 

 lands. 



In response to a Senate resolution, Sec- 

 retary Garfield has recently transmitted 

 to Congress an instructive reportt on the 

 work which the bureaus of his depart- 

 ment have already done in connection 

 with swamp and drainage matters. While 

 the country generally has supposed that 

 drainage, so far as it is related to the 

 work of the federal government, is a new 

 question, and that any information that 

 Congress might want with respect to 

 swamp lands would be forthcoming only 

 after much investigation, it seems these 

 bureaus have not only been for years 

 making detailed surveys and studies of 

 swamp lands of the United States, but the 

 Department of the Interior has in several 

 cases entered into actual drainage con- 

 struction of large tracts in connection 

 with irrigation projects. 



Over twenty years ago the Geolog- 

 ical Survey started a special investigation 

 of the swamp areas of the country in the 

 work of the late Professor Nathaniel S. 

 Shaler, and his estimate of approximately 

 78,000,000 acres of wet lands east of the 

 100th meridian stands today as accurate, 



* National Geographic Magazine for May, 

 1907. 

 t Senate Document No. 151. 



probably, as any figures yet produced. 

 The fact, as stated in Mr Garfield's re- 

 port, that between seven and eight mil- 

 lion acres of swamps have been inciden- 

 tally surveyed by the Geological Survey 

 in connection with the general topo- 

 graphic survey of the United States di- 

 rects attention to the great value of this 

 class of work. One-third of the area of 

 the country has already been covered 

 topographically, and in this area where 

 swamps occur these maps, taken in con- 

 nection with the hydrographic and geo- 

 logic investigations of the Survey, afford 

 all the preliminary information required 

 for determining the feasibility of drain- 

 age projects and for planning the broad 

 features of construction. 



The reason that greater swamp areas 

 have not been mapped is indicated by 

 the fact that since the primary purpose 

 of the topographic work of the Survey is 

 to secure a base for the geologic map of 

 the United States, the specific localities 

 chosen for topographic surveys have 

 naturally been those of greatest geolog- 

 ical and mineral importance and have not 

 included any great swampy regions. 



Several special drainage surveys, how- 

 ever, are described, as, for instance, the 

 work in the Sacramento Valley of Cali- 

 fornia, where a cooperative survey is 

 being conducted by the state and the gov- 

 ernment, the Geological Survey doing the 

 work. In this case special maps, designed 

 for reclamation purposes, are being made 

 of the million acres of rich tule swamps, 

 about two-thirds of the work having been 

 completed. In this valley is located the 

 greatest combined drainage and irriga- 

 tion project in the United States, com- 

 prising a million acres of swamp and two 

 million acres of reclaimable arid lands. 



A special drainage survey is also being 

 made in the upper Yazoo delta, Missis- 

 sippi, under cooperative arrangement be- 

 tween the Geological Survey and the 



