AN ARTIFICIAL STORAGE LAKE.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3862, 16 May 1881, Page 3

AN ARTIFICIAL STORAGE LAKE.

A great storage lake, to be called "Lake Mackenzie, is one of the " possibilities " of North America recently. suggested. The lake, according to an account given * of the scheme by the St. Louis Eepuhli- . can, would result from a proposed closing of the northerly outlet of the valley of the Mackenzie River, at the line 68 deg. north, and storing np tbe * water of l,26o,ooo.square roiles. And to this could be added the water of other large areas. It would be a lake of about two thousand triilftrin lemth by about two hundred of avenge wioth. If b surface would have an; altitude of about six hundred and fift? jjtkt khoTe sea level. It wopM corer with Borface th# ]abyriijth of 'alreifßa md lakes wbioSi sow occupy .% Mae%e»»#staH'y. It wo«M + be a m'mikhUm fr«^r for the Kwßissippi ITV wo«l4J«M>ee4 wUk Hvdsot Bay and with tb«*' g4mi.lftke»," and also %»ith the interior of Alaska by connecting with the! and -its aflaentaw It would Wcome a navigable wwtrtF, adding not less 4kio twelve* thousand miles of communicaHon to the-MißtimppU f lt would *4ikb'ft*te the inferiorlTnes of nrercourses I@T wmnecting them : cutting the "divide " which now exists between the Mississippi jtedVatkenzie would, do this. The work is easy of accomplishment under the Method* proposed. The connecting of the .Upper Mississippi with the proposed Lake-Mackenzie would be easily made if that lake had a inrfaee at tbe proposed allitade of 650 feef'aWe the sea. The oatflow rVom such a lake would be a Hmebr and Tenduring one. The lake wbttfg, moreover, make possible and easy (ht> straightening of the Lower Mississippi, It, wor^ld also contribute to the proposed ship-channel from Cairo, Illinois, to the (xulf of St. Lawrence by the almost straight line which outs the Wabash Valley, the Lakes Erie and Ontario, and the Lower St. Lawren«e. This commerial channel, receiving all the waters converging at Cairo, would complete the demand for a constantly open ship channel from the St. Lawrence to the sea by the way of the Strait of Belle Isle The shortest and best line of communication can be thus opened between the in- j terior and the seaboard. Lake Macken- ' zie is, howerer, at present a "possibility " rather than a " probability."—« St. James' Gazette. .