SHELBY COUNTY. 457 
inches. A much larger 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 ef 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 during 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 canzi? This would be the measure of gain each year resulting from 
the removal of all this material from the reservoir—for every lock-full 
of logs a lock-full of water 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- 
