THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



21 



nize their rights to water for sanitary 

 purposes and to the water front for a 

 playground. 



xo "keep off the grass" IN CHICAGO 



The city annually spends five million 

 dollars for park purposes ; more per 

 capita, perhaps, than any other city of 

 the first order in existence. There is not 

 a "keep off the grass" in the entire park 

 system : and all recreational facilities are 

 free except the boats in the lagoons. 



At the two golf courses in Jackson 

 Park a third of a million balls were teed 

 off in 19 1 6. Twice as many people play 

 on the long course in Jackson Park as 

 play on the long course at the historic 

 links at St. Andrew. No charge is made 

 for playing, and there are locker accom- 

 modations for three thousand, while 

 some sixty an hour can be started in play. 

 Frequently players have remained up all 

 night in order to get a chance to tee off 

 next day. 



There is a "swimming hole" within 

 walking distance of every boy in Chi- 

 cago ; and even with the fine municipal 

 bathing beaches of the lake front not far 

 away, these mid-city park lagoons are 

 always in use, providing joy for the 

 hearts of the kiddies who visit them. 



SHIFTING WATERS FROM ST. LAWRENCE 

 TO MEXICO 



Long ago Chicago discovered that if 

 it were not to develop into a hotbed of 

 typhoid fever and other diseases of the 

 intestinal tract it would have to devise 

 some way of keeping the water of the 

 lake front free from pollution. A mount- 

 ing typhoid rate, making the city more 

 nearly a pest-hole than a proper habita- 

 tion for man, demonstrated that it could 

 not continue to mix sewage with drink- 

 ing water by draining the sewers into the 

 lake. 



So, heroic measures were taken to end 

 the pollution. The Chicago River was 

 forced to give up an age-long right to 

 contribute its water to the St. Lawrence, 

 and was made to flow across the divide 

 separating the Great Lakes from the Mis- 

 sissippi River. Thus waters that nor- 

 mally ran into the Gulf of St. Lawrence 

 were dispatched into the Gulf of Mexico 



and made to carry the burden of Chi- 

 cago's sewage as they went. 



This was accomplished by the construc- 

 tion of a drainage canal 36 miles long, 

 from the south branch of the Chicago 

 River to the Illinois River at Joliet. This 

 waterway, 24 feet deep, and 64 feet wide 

 in rock and 202 in earth, has a fall of 40 

 feet. It serves the triple purpose of 

 drainage, navigation, and power develop- 

 ment. Its construction was begun in the 

 World's Fair year and cost nearly sev- 

 enty million dollars. It was built larger 

 than the requirements of the hour for 

 drainage, and sooner or later will form a 

 part of the waterway that will permit 

 river steamers to ply between the Lakes 

 and the Gulf. 



When the State legislation authorizing 

 the canal was passed, a provision was 

 incorporated providing that, in order to 

 prevent the sewage from becoming a 

 nuisance and a menace to the country 

 through which the canal passes, there 

 should be a flow of 333 ]A, cubic feet per 

 second for every hundred thousand peo- 

 ple. Realizing that the population would 

 probably reach three million by 1930, the 

 city provided for a flow of 10,000 feet 

 per second, with an ultimate capacity of 

 14,000 feet. 



But the Secretary of War, under his 

 control of navigable waters, stepped in 

 and fixed the flow at 5,000. Later, when 

 it was proposed by the city to construct 

 a branch to drain the Calumet Lake dis- 

 trict, the question of the effect on the 

 water level of the Great Lakes was 

 brought in. 



On the ground that a greater flow 

 would cut down the lake level, the Sec- 

 retary of War kept down the allotment ; 

 so Chicago was between the devil of 

 State law and the deep sea of Federal 

 order. 



Although pointing out that Lake Michi- 

 gan was higher in the ten years follow- 

 ing the opening of the canal than in the 

 ten preceding ; and although showing that 

 it was higher by fifteen inches in January, 

 1917, than it was in January, 1916; and, 

 further, that it was higher in 1916 than 

 it had been in any January since 1876, 

 the Sanitary District authorities were 

 unable to convince the Secretary of War. 



