LaPorte County, Indiana - Chapter 1: Nature, 1904

' * Man finds history to be like great woods, in the middle of which are silence, night birds, and birds of prey, and whose borders only are filled with light and song ' - Jean Paul Richter.

Before writing of the early settlement of La- Porte county it may be well to consider briefly its condition before the advent of the white settler. For hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years this section of country remained in a state of nature. It was not "an unbroken wilderness," but a region of beauty through which French missionaries and adventurers, the soldiers of different nations, hunters, trappers and explorers passed and repassed, but which was inhabitated only by the red man and the native animals. Here wild flowers bloomed and faded, great trees grew and decayed, deer roamed the forests and prairies, and numer¬ ous birds lived in the leafy groves. Beautiful sheets of water lay like mirrors on the surface of the country, sportive fish flopped their silver sides into the sunshine, and in all the west there was no more lovely region.

The impression which has generally prevailed of the contour and surface arrangement of La- Porte county is, that there is a well marked belt of ridges running across the country at the north, a prairie belt running irregularly east and west through the center, and a well marked belt of marsh land running irregularly northeast and southwest at the south, extending to the Kanka¬ kee river. Probably this impression has been deepened by Packard's History, which presents this view of the subject. That there is a line of ridges at the north, is well known ; but that there is a belt of marsh land at the south, is a great mistake. The first settlers of the county, and until recently the later settlers, have been de¬ ceived in the matter. It is quite true that many thousands of acres of marsh grass have grown on the low lands of the Kankakee, and there is much of this growing there yet. This, however, is not because the Kankakee valley is a marsh, or any¬ thing of the kind, but simply because good prairie land has been under water. The land in this val¬ ley is not fen, bog, morass, swamp or quagmire. There is comparatively little swamp or bog land in the county. This region has been overflowed simply because the crooked Kankakee was so sluggish that it could not carry off the water rap¬ idly enough, hence it has spread over the adjacent level country, and the result has been a dense growth of coarse marsh grass. But of late years powerful syndicates have bought up the land, and by an excellent system of ditching and draining, which they are carrying out on a mammoth scale, they have reclaimed many thousands of acres in the Kankakee valley, and once the water is drawn off, the soil is seen to be a dark, sandy loam, mixed with clay, and in many places reaching to a great depth; it is just as really a prairie soil as any other. There are now good, hard, travelled roads where once it was thought impossible to make them, and what has been known as the "Kankakee marshes" and "the Kankakee swamps" are among the most fertile lands in the world. These lands produce Indian corn which is truly wonderful in both quality and quantity, they are adapted to raise wheat, oats and other crops, and on the roadsides and in the fallow fields blue grass and clover are taking possession of soil where it was thought only slough grass would grow.

The valley lands are exceedingly level in the southwest part of the county, which is not so much the case farther up the river. Approaching the eastern boundary of the county, even the val¬ ley lands become slightly undulating. This is the case also with the prairie on the higher lands. Toward the east it becomes more undulating, and even rolling, until it stretches away like a billowy sea.

To the early settler, there was a clearly de¬ fined, irregular strip of marsh at the south of the county, while on higher ground two broad prai¬ ries, dotted with groves, stretched in an irregular way nearly east and west. A little to the west there was a narrow opening through a dense grove from one part of the prairie to another, forming a door which was destined to become historic. Tall prairie grass grew in abundance, flowers bloomed gorgeously, and no prairie region east of the Mississippi could exceed in beauty those broad stretches which were afterward called Rolling Prairie and Door Prairie. There were also smaller stretches of prairie each with its distinctive name, as for instance Dormaine prairie in the western part of Noble township, which some say was named after an Indian chief, who was called by that term, while others say it is the Indian word for corn.

To the north, nestling in their basins, sur¬ rounded by hills and wooded shores, were a num¬ ber of beautiful lakes, jewels on the bosom of mother earth. In the spring time she was clad in robes of verdure and decked with gems to cele¬ brate her marriage with an incoming civilization. Indian trails led from different points northward to the summit or highest point of land between the prairie and the great lakes. This was a ridge running irregularly across the country, nearly parallel with, and eight to ten miles from, the shores of Lake Michigan, to which it bore a close relation. This ridge divided the watershed be¬ tween the north and south. On the east its north¬ ern declension gradually fell toward the St. Jo¬ seph river ; on the west the declension was more abrupt, making a rapid descent to the shore of Lake Michigan.

Northward there was a magnificent scene. The descending country was marked by several wooded ridges, each lower than the preceding, presenting the appearance of a rolling, umbra¬ geous sea ; while in the background beyond a misty line at the edge of the forest, rose the blue waters of the great lake. All through this northern de¬ clension of the country were numerous streams, which would furnish ample power for the mills soon to be built upon them.

There were two or three kinds of prairie grass, the tall blue-point, and slough grass, some of which still grows in the Kankakee valley. There were golden rod, indigo, boneset, wild sunflowers and ferns. These have been replaced with blue grass, timothy and other growths, bringing with them, unfortunately, many weeds.

There was an abundance of native fruit, such as wild grapes, crab apples, red and yellow wild plums, wild strawberries, wintergreen berries and sand-hill cherries. Huckleberries grew in abund¬ ance, especially on the sand ridges of the northern slope, and afterwards became an industry there. In some parts of the county there were marshes where cranberries were plentiful, and thousands of bushels were gathered and sent away in wagon loads to the nearest markets. In the woods there were white and black walnuts, hickory, beech and hazel nuts. And in the northwestern part of the county there were great maples which in the springtime yielded theif delicious syrup and sugar.

There was an abundance of timber to be cut and sawed in the mills. In the southern part of the county there were red oak, hickory and tam¬ arack ; in the prairie groves there were burr-oak, maple, elm, pig-nut, shell-bark hickory, bass¬ wood and sassafras ; and on the hilly portions to the north and east, there were beech, white and red oak, elm, poplar, maple, white and blue ash, shell-bark hickory, bass-wood, black and white walnut, cherry, sycamore, sassafras, cotton-wood and tamarack, with a few red cedars ; and nearer Lake Michigan there was an abundance of white pine. A growth of these white pines covered much of the spot where Michigan City now' stands.

There were wild pigeons so numerous that their flight sometimes darkened the sky. They gathered acorns from the oaks, and grass seed from the prairies. There were wild turkeys in the thick woods, thousands of prairie chickens on the prairies, wild geese, brents and ducks of vari¬ ous kinds in the waters. When the country be¬ gan to settle up, hundreds of thousands of these were killed in a year. A species of ducks known as "old wives" was frequently taken in the nets which the fishermen set on the bottom of Lake Michigan, in one hundred and eighty feet of water. Even at such a depth the fishermen de¬ clared that these birds were often caught in their nets, and on one occasion they report the capture of three hundred at one haul. This is on the authority of former State Geologist Cox. There were loons and mud hens, various kinds of cranes and other water birds. There were blackbirds, meadow-larks, mourning-doves, robins, blue- jays, cat-birds, wrens, thrushes, martins, swallows, hawks, grouse, pheasants, eagles, and many others, which it is not necessary to mention as this does not presume to be a scientific work but only to give a general idea of the nature of the country.

In the rivers and inland lakes there were white and yellow cat-fish, bull-heads or hornedpouts, suckers, different kinds of minnows, chubs, pike, bass, sun-fish, perch, shiners and other varieties. The waters were not "fished to death" as now, the finny tribes were less shy of the bait, and the fisherman was rewarded more abundantly for less exertion. And in Lake Mich¬ igan there were muskalonge - from the Ojibwav, maskanonya, long-snout, and several other kinds, and more numerous than all, the excellent and palatable whitefish. This was a land of plenty for the pioneer ; he could subsist and at the same time enjoy the best of sport while building a home for his family and reducing the soil to cul¬ tivation.

number. Some remains of them have been found but it is the opinion of authorities on the subject that they were only small, straggling herds. But there were deer, opossums, squirrels, wood¬ chucks, rabbits, badgers, weasles, common prairie and gray wolves, foxes, and many other animals. Of reptiles there were many, which we will not name. The rattlesnake is often found still, es¬ pecially in Galena township and in the Kankakee valley. A young man awhile pitching hay in Dewey township, last summer, found two of them writhing in his forkful. There were valuable fur-bearing animals such as a few beavers, and an abundance of otter, mink, raccoons and musk¬ rats. In short, Lake Michigan, the Kankakee river, numerous small streams and the inland lakes, together with the swamps, valleys, prairies, groves, loam, clay and sandhills, produced a great variety of conditions, and made this region the home of numerous species of animals. It would be difficult to find an equal area more advantage¬ ous in this1 respect. Hence it was a most inviting spot for the pioneer. It is no wonder that the Indians were unwilling to leave the country, and that many of them tarried here long after the great body of their people had passed to the west¬ ward.

Elevation is one of the most important of the factors which determine the climate of a locality. This is seen from the fact that even in the torrid zone, if there is a sufficient elevation, as in the mountains, the heat is less intense and the climate is healthful. The country which comprises La- Porte county is greatly favored in this respect. W. S. Blatchley, Indiana State Geologist, and his assistant, George H. Ashley, tell us that the more important railroad stations are as follows, in feet above sea level : Hanna, 703 ; Haskells, 771 ; La- Crosse, 675; LaPorte, 812; Michigan City, 600; Oakwood, 727; Otis, 765; Rolling Prairie, 820; Stillwell, 731; Wanatah, 730; Westville, 789. Taking these figures, the Kankakee river, even at its lowest point where it flows out of the county is over 75 feet higher than Lake Michigan ; that is to say, if it were not for the intervening ridges, the waters of the Kankakee would flow north¬ ward into Lake Michigan instead of southward into the Gulf of Mexico. They who would dig a canal and turn the water of Lake Michigan into the Kankakee, should remember this. The water would run the other way, and that too, without sufficient volume for locks and navigation. At least there would not be sufficient water during a large part of each year.

Not only has this section of country a high elevation relatively to the ocean, but relatively to the neighboring waters. E. T. Cox, former State Geologist, gives the following elevations of sev¬ eral railroad stations above Lake Erie : LaPorte, city, 250 feet; Wanatah, 150 feet ; LaCrosse, 102 feet. He says again that, starting from Lake Michigan and coming south toward the city of LaPorte, the first sand ridge along the present shore line rises above the water level from 30 to 85 feet, though broken at intervals by valleys, and consisting of irregular peaks some higher than others. Just over this ridge, on the south side, is a space or valley of half a mile, which is from 15 to 20 feet above the lake. Here Michi¬ gan City now stands. The top of the second ridge is 50 feet; and just over this, still coming south, is another valley of about half a mile, which is 35 feet above the water. The third ridge is 45 feet, the fourth 95, and the fifth 225 feet above the lake. Professor Cox does not say at what points he took these elevations. It is well known that two miles north of LaPorte the crest which di¬ vides the southward drainage from the northward is 270 feet above Lake Michigan. The country therefore slopes 270 feet from the summit north¬ ward to Lake Michigan, interrupted by ridge after -ridge. Professor Blaltchley makes Lake Michigan to be 600 feet above sea level. Other authorities make it to be less. But taking Profess¬ or Blatchley's figures, the country slopes south¬ ward from the summit to LaPorte 58 feet ; from LaPorte to Otis, 47 feet; from LaPorte to Still¬ well, 81 feet ; from LaPorte to Westville, 23 feet ; from Westville to Wanatah, 59 feet; and from Wanatah to LaCrosse, 55 feet. Thus the south¬ ern slope of the county is 137 feet from LaPorte City to LaCrosse. To quote Professor Blatchlev :

"The entire surface is of glacial origin, the Valparaiso moraine with a width of six miles passing northeastward across the northwestern comer of the county. The crest of this moraine lies from 225 to 300 feet above the level of Lake Michigan." For the remainder of the passage Professor Blatchley quotes from Frank Leverett, of the United States Geological Survey, as fol¬ lows: "This moraine rises very abruptly on its northwest border above the low plain which lies between it and Lake Michigan, but on its south¬ east border a gravel outwash from the moraine is built up nearly to the level of the crest, and the descent is gradual from the moraine to the Kan¬ kakee marsh. The marsh stands fully 100 feet above Lake Michigan in eastern LaPorte county, and about 75 feet at the western border of the county. It is therefore 150 to 200 feet or more below the crest of the moraine. The gravel plain makes a descent of 75 or 100 feet in the interval of eight or ten miles between the moraine and the marsh."

The writer does not quote the above figures for their absolute correctness, but only to give a general idea of the elevation of the country. And from all this it will be seen that a region couldhardly be situated more advantageously for pur¬ poses of drainage. The Kankakee river broadens into a lake at the east, this river and its tributaries, the Little Kankakee, Hood Creek, Mill Creek, Hog Creek, and the great ditches, drain the southern declination ; northwest of the summit the drainage is into Lake Michigan through Trail Creek and other streams; and northeast of the summit the drainage is into Lake Michigan through tributaries of the St. Joseph river.

The next interesting feature of the country is the sand ridges north of the summit. At the present shore line of Lake Michigan there is a long line of sand dunes of different shapes and heights, with irregular valleys between them. The largest of these - certainly once the largest - is called "Hoosier Slide." In the year i860 this was 175 feet high, and in some places only 20- feet wide at the top. This was originally covered with a growth of small white oaks and other veg¬ etation which was subsequently cut away for fuel. Denuded of the trees which protected it, and the roots which held it together dying and losing their strength, this mountain of sand was left at the mercy of the winds and became so re¬ duced that in 1874 it was only 120 feet above the lake. At times when its base was washed by the waves the sand would roll down in an avalanche. Hence it was called "Hoosier Slide." Other sand, dunes still retain their vegetation and are covered with small white pines, alders and other growths.

On the beach between this ridge of sand dunes and the lake, the mail stage and other carriages were driven in pioneer times from Michigan City to and from Chicago. The sandy beach, made hard by the waves, was at one time the best road that existed.

It is easy to see how this ridge of sandhills was formed, for the process is going on before our eyes. When a storm is in progress, or the wind is high, each succeeding wave brings up from the depths of the lake a small cargo of clean, white sand and lands it high cm die beach. The storm abates, the waves recede, and the wind takes this sand and carries it landward. The wind eddies about the trees and bushes which grow near by, and piles up the sand at their roots. The trees and bushes keep growing, and the wind keeps piling up the sand, until after a very long time a large sandhill is formed, and even a ridge of them around the shore of the lake, whose tops and sides are covered with vegetation. N. S. Shaler, Professor of Geology in Harvard Uni¬ versity, says that the sand dunes on the south shore of Lake Michigan are the best example in the world of this process.

Now, thousands of years ago - how long we know not - the lake was much higher than now. Its shore line was much nearer the northern base of the ridge which divides the watershed. There precisely this process of washing up the sand and piling it around the trees went on until, after some ages, a line of these sand hills was formed there. This, with added vegetation and many changes, now constitutes the first sand ridge of hills north of the summit. The lake receded and after a time made another stand, and repeated the process until a second and lower sand ridge of hills was formed. And so it was with ridge after ridge, until the lake receded to its present shore line and took its stand there. No continu¬ ous sand ridges are found south of the fifth from the lake, though the valleys and hollows are more or less floored with this wave-washed material. There is no evidence that Lake Michigan was ever on the south side of the summit, but until H receded it was high up on the north side. It is remarkable that the sand ridges successively are nearly parallel with the present shore line of Lake Michigan, showing that they mark former shore lines. Not only so, but the land between them, under its accumulated soil of decayed vege¬ tation, consists, as railroad cuts have shown, of sand with occasional beds of day, which is pre¬ cisely the case at the bottom of Lake Michigan at the present time. So that the evidence is con¬ clusive that the sand ridges mark the ancient shore lines, and the valleys between them mark the recessions of the lake.

A large body of water like Lake Michigan sustains the same relation to the drculatory sys¬ tem of nature that the heart does to the human body. The atmosphere is the lungs, the rain¬ storms are the arteries, the soil is the flesh, the rocks are the bones and the brooks and rivers are the veins. As the heart sends the blood into the lungs, so a lake evaporates the water into the air; as the lungs send the blood into the body again, through the arteries, so the atmosphere sends the water to the earth through the rain¬ storms, to refresh and nourish it. And as the veins take the blood back to the heart again, so the little veins, the brooks and rivers, conduct the water down to the lake. Humanity is stamped upon nature from God who is the source of it, and it is of some advantage to live near the heart where irrigation is sufficient.

It has been said that climate and soil control in a large degree the destines of the human race. This is why LaPorte county has become, and will remain, one of the foremost counties of the state, On account of its advantages of land and water transportation, drainage, climate and soil, it will take even a higher rank than it has now. The country has been comparatively free from earth¬ quakes, cyclones, tornadoes and disastrous storms. It has occasionally had an extreme of cold or heat, as for instance during the past win¬ ter, and on Monday morning May n, 1857, when ice froze in tubs to the thickness of half an inch ; but in the main the climate, tempered by the in¬ fluence of Lake Michigan, is free from excessive heat or cold.

In the county there are four different kinds of soil - sandy soil, timber loam, prairie loam and some vegetable mold. The sandy soil prevails in the northwestern portion, in Michigan, Cool¬ spring and Springfield townships, where the country declines toward Lake Michigan. It will not produce wheat as abundantly as other kinds of soil, though the quality of what is produced is excellent. But it is warm, and especially adapted to the production of the potato and of fruits, es¬ pecially small fruits. In some places on the hills the soil is a strong clay. The timber loam pre¬ vails in the northeastern portion, in Galena and Hudson townships, where the declension is toward the St. Joseph river. This soil is of great depth and richness, and has fully rewarded with abundant harvests those who have persevered in clearing it and subduing the natural obstacles to cultivation. The above two varieties of soil be¬ long to the northern belt of the county, which originally was mostly covered with timber. The prairie loam is peculiar to the prairie belt, which constitutes the larger part of the county. It is a sandy loam resting on a subsoil of gravel and sand with some clay, and is exceedingly produc¬ tive. It is well adapted to raising all sorts of ce¬ reals, as well as horticultural products, but is chiefly suited to the production of wheat. It has made LaPorte one of the chief wheat growing counties of the state. The vegetable mold is found in the Kankakee valley, and in other places, where there are evidently extinct lakes. It is composed of decayed vegetable matter. It is a great peat bed, in some places forty feet deep, and where not cultivated is covered with a rank growth of marsh grass and flowering plants. By drainage and proper treatment it is rendered ex¬ ceedingly fertile. In these places bog iron has been found, and underlying many of them are beds of marl.

But upon what do these soils rest ? Upon an immense glacial drift. LaPorte county, in com¬ mon with Indiana's three northern tiers of coun¬ ties, is of glacial origin. Authorities say that this drift formation is the mfcst important of all. There was a time when nearly the whole of this North American continent, north of certain de¬ grees of latitude, was one vast region of ice fields. Huge glaciers were formed in the north, by the melting and compacting of snows. The glaciers filled the space between the mountains and hills, the ice melted at the bottoms and sides and lubri¬ cated the track, and gravity slowly pushed the great masses of ice southward. On the way / great rocks were broken off and rounded by the steady grinding, soil was gouged out and tumbled over upon the ice, and a vast mass of material was added to the sides of the glacier. The ma¬ terial thus formed is called a moraine. Some¬ times two glaciers moved out of their valleys and united ; and then, of course, in the larger glacier thus formed there was a large mass of material in the center as well as at the sides. Slowly the glacier made its way southward until finally there came a change and it melted. While its accumu¬ lated matters and substances were being depos¬ ited, and the water was running down over them, there was a segregation of materials. The finest and softest was filtered through the rest and formed beds of clay, and wherever a huge piece of ice made a dent in the clay, like the fist in a piece of putty, there the ice melted and left an inland lake.

Other material which was coarser and harder was washed together and formed beds of sand. There were gravel washouts formed of stony materials rounded off and reduced to greater or less fineness by the grinding and washing of ages. LaPorte county is covered with this glacial drift. There is a huge ridge of this deposit called the Valparaiso moraine, about six miles wide, which extends in a northwesterly direction across the county, the crest of which is the dividing line of the watershed between the north and south. In certain places where borings for natural gas have penetrated to the underlying stratified rock, the thickness of this drift is known. At LaCrosse it is 38 feet, at Michigan City 250 feet and at La¬ Porte 295 feet thick. Within the walls of the Pen¬ itentiary at Michigan City a well was bored to the depth of 541^ feet. The boring showed the fol¬ lowing strata :

The bore terminated in a porous limestone from which flowed a stream of water so impreg¬ nated with gas and mineral substances as to ren¬ der it unfit for drinking and cooking purposes. The water rose twenty-two feet above the surface of the ground, and discharged about three hun- dred gallons per minute, with a temperature of fifty-seven degrees Fahrenheit. This well emits such an offensive odor that it has been found necessary to plug it and stop the flow of water. But even now the odor escapes and it is proposed to erect a pipe as high as the water rises, and drop cement into it and thus effectually stop the well down in the depths. In other counties there are found, in the glacial drift, beds of white clay, formed by selection and precipitation by water of silica alumina and lime taken from the drift mass. Also strata of muck soil, vege¬ table mold, fragments of wood and deposits of peat. The first gas well sunk at Frankfort was abandoned while the drill was in the bed of an ancient lake or pond now filled with a slush of sand, loamy muck and vegetable remains. This was struck at a depth of about one hundred feet. From all this we may form a general idea of the formation on which we live. Our soil is not formed on the rock bottom, which is comparative¬ ly near the surface in other sections of the state, but upon a glacial drift which at LaPorte is nearly three hundred feet above it.

But as we have gone so far, let us go a little deeper and consider the question whether the people of LaPorte county can have a reasonable hope of finding oil or natural gas beneath them. Of course we cannot tell absolutely. Gas and also oil - for the two are from the same source - may be found where we think they do not exist ; but from all the known facts there is no reasonable hope of finding either, in this part of Indiana. Oil has indeed been found in small quantities in this part of the state but it is a very different thing to find it in commercially paying quantities. The pressure which forces the gas out of a well is simply water pressure, as in artesian wells. In the bowels of the earth, the water which is heav¬ iest will be below the oil and the oil below the gas. Natural gas was generated from animal and vegetable matter, and is a product stored in the earth and not now forming. For the storing of natural gas two things are necessary - something to contain it, and something to confine it. The reservoir which contains it is the Trenton rock which extends over the whole state nowhere turn¬ ing its edges to the surface. The prison which confines it is the Utica shale, a dense and close cover through which the gas cannot pass. But in order to contain it the Trenton rock must be porous. It must have gone through a decomposi¬ tion which has left holes in it something like a sponge. It is all the better if it has a structural relief like a dome to serve as a pocket. But it must be porous or there is no room in which to store the gas. And unless there is a cover to con¬ fine it, it will escape, either to the surface or to some higher stratum. When the drill penetrates through the Utica shale into one of these pockets the gas escapes, often with tremendous force and loud noise. Thus far the drill has shown that the Trenton rock is porous only in a certain area in the east central part of the state. With the ex¬ ception of a few spots, as in Dekalb and Pulaski counties, the Trenton rock is not porous else¬ where. It is hard and dense in LaPorte and neighboring counties, and hence, according to all the facts thus far known, we need not expect to find either gas or oil in this region of country. Of course, even where the Trenton rock is porous and properly covered there are other conditions necessary to insure an abundance and permanancy of this valuable fuel, such as area, thickness and pressure. None of these conditions have been found to exist in the northern counties.

On the northern border of the prairie belt there are many small lakes. Their origin, flora, fauna, deposits and the causes of their diminu¬ tion, are known to comparatively few. Yet some of them are of charming beauty and are fruitful subjects of study. Says an eminent authority: "The lakes of northern Indiana are the brightest gems in the corona of the state. They are the most beautiful and expressive features of the landscape in the region where they abound." Says State Geologist Blatchley, "The original bot¬ tom of these is composed of an impervious clay or mixture of clay and gravel, which is probably nowhere much less than one hundred feet in thickness." There is no evidence that these lakes were ever a part of Lake Michigan. When the ancient glaciers melted and retreated, many low basins were left which might have become lakes, but their bottoms were composed of sand, gravel or other porous material, and they would not hold the water. Many a huge piece of glacier lay bedded in clay, and when it melted the water remained where it was, and forms the lake of to-day. Other lakes were formed by the washing of the great streams as they poured down from the meltii^r glaciers. These streams washed out channels in the clay, and dammed themselves up therein, and have remained until the present time. After the drift material had been deposited and settled and the lake was formed, surface water from the surrounding hills flowed down into the lake ; and water from the subterranean veins, fol¬ lowing the course of least resistance, broke through the clay bottom from below and fed the lake by springs, and in these two ways the loss of evaporation was sustained.

But, alas ! the lakes were bom to die, and be¬ gan to die as soon as bom. The surface water from the surrounding hills, and the fountains from below, deposited in the lakes other material than water. Aquatic plants began to grow and decay on the bottom and fill the lake with muck, and this is the most important cause of the ex¬ tinction of the moraine lakes. The muck beds are usually found on the south and west shores of the main basins of the lakes. There the waters are least disturbed by wave action, for the pre¬ vailing winds blow upon the east and north shores. Muck also forms quickly in the bays and channels for the same reason. In the words of Dr. Dryer, in his studies in Indiana Geography, "The lakes are literally being filled with solidified air; the great bulk of the solid material which composes the plants being absorbed from the gaseous ocean above, and consigned to the watery depths below.,, All green plants, whether aquatic or terrestrial, are continually absorbing carbon and building it into their own tissues. On this account many lakes in the county have already become extinct and are now' merely beds of muck. Many of them are under cultivation and the soil is most excellent. And those which remain are going the same way. In 1873 Professor Cox re¬ ported some of the lakes entirely free from any growth of vegetation, and remarkably clear and mirror-like when unruffled by the winds. But none of them are so to-day. He said that others, especially those whicn received considerable drainage from the adjoining lands, were thickly set with aquatic plants of the water lily family. On the other hand it is said that the lack of drain¬ age from the adjoining lands causes the lowering of the lakes. For instance as long ago as 1874,

General Packard, in speaking of Hudson Lake says : "Like all the lakes in the country, it be¬ came less in volume as the land was cleared up, the timber cut off, and the sod broken. * * * The lake is now at least four feet below its former level." So then, it appears that the lakes are fated to go, whether they receive drainage from the surrounding country or not; if they receive it, aquatic plants grow and decay on the bottoms, and the lakes are filled with muck ; if they do not receive it, they lack sufficient water to offset evap¬ oration.

That each lake is a basin independent of the others, may be seen from the fact that before connection by channel was opened between them, there was a difference of levels in neighboring lakes, the water in one at times standing several inches higher than in another. The same thing has been observed in neighboring lakes in other counties.

If the above view is correct - and it is sup¬ ported by the highest authority - it would appear that dredging does not lower the lakes. Dredg¬ ing may perhaps break through the muck, but it will hardly break through the deep clay at the bottom of it, which forms the real basin. Nor will drainage, as for instance by the Kankakee ditches, lower the lakes directly. But it will in¬ directly; for it will lower the water level in the surrounding hills, and prevent the lakes from re¬ ceiving a supply of water equal to that which is evaporated.

Professor Cox says, "These, like other lakes in northern Indiana, have been subject to fluctu¬ ation of surface levels, or a gradual sinking away of the water from five to seven feet during a peri¬ od of from six to ten years, and in turn as grad¬ ually rising again to or near its original level in about the same length of time. This oscillation has continued through unequal periods of time, since the earliest observation of white men, and doubtless dates back to the time when the glacial sea retired and left these basins in their present isolated situation.

"The annual rainfall recorded through a series of years, does not correspond to the oscillation of the water levels of these lakes, nor have they been observed to rise any more rapidly during a wet than during a dry season, or vice versa, but rather

All this is simply in harmony with the gen¬ eral rythm of nature, and by it we need not de¬ ceive ourselves into thinking that the lakes will ever return to their former level. The perodical rising of the lakes is like that of the ebbing tide ; each incoming wave rises nearly as high as the preceding one, but not quite. As surely as the tide goes out, our lakes will recede until nothing but muck beds remain. They are bom to die, as certainly as any other objects of the material crea¬ tion.

It is sad to part with these jewels from the bosom of our county, but it will be a long time before they cease to shine, and what compensat¬ ing feature will appear before then we know not. Change is the law of nature, but the law of com¬ pensation is not less universal; and when the lakes are gone there will be compensation in some form, though we cannot tell what. The streams will still seek their level, the prairies will still stretch away in undulations, beautiful groves will still dot the meadows, the birds will sing, the flowers will bloom, and "while the earth remaineth seed tine and harvest, cold and heat and sum¬ mer and winter and day and night shall not cease."

Such is the nature of the region which be¬ came the county of LaPorte, one of the brightest stars in that galaxy of counties which constitute the state of Indiana.