Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 February 1892 — 'TWAS A DRY DAY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

'TWAS A DRY DAY.

Chicago** Water Supply Cut Off for Ovor Right Hours. Chicago went dry one day recently. With her 1,800 saloons and a body of water like Lake Michigan in close proximity, the statement may seem somewhat remarkable, but it is true nevertheless. It is now more than twenty years since Chicago had a like experience. The great fire crippled the water-works and for several days

the usual supply was entirely cut off. Since then there have been temporary interruptions of flow, and at times the citizens were called on to be economical, but the supply was never so nearly exhausted as it was last week. The consequences were in many cases deplorable, in others laughable. Many establishments were forced to shut down for want of the water wherewith to make steam, and at least one explosion was reported as a direct result of the inadequate supply. The hotels and restaurants found it impossible to meet the bibulous and lavatory requirements of their patrons, hundreds of residents had to go without coffee for breakfast and use snow water for washing, if they washed at all. Fortunately the deprivation did not interfere with interior transit, as the cable-house reservoirs had a sufficiency on hand for the emergency or made arrangements to haul water' from the lake. But at the StockYards there was a serious suspension' of activity, and many of the animals suffered intense thirst. Chicago gets her water supply from cribs located a considerable distance out in the lake, and the trouble was at these cribs. Ice formed in the port-holes, completely blocking up the passages through which the Water normally flows into the intakes. It may seem strange, and the result of gross carelessness, that such an accident should be permitted to occur at a comparatively mild temperature when several severe winters without any annoyance from that cause have been passed through. But the fact is the city had the extraordinary experience of eighteen days of consecutive frost, and, worst of all, the water in the lake is phenomenally low. It is said to be a foot and a half below city datum, the latter being regarded as the minimum when it was taken as the standard, about forty-five years

ago. This means that the openings at the crib, which would ordinarily be so far below the surface as to be out of the reach of frost, are now within the freezing area. It would be too much to say the evil could not have been prevented with due care. The fact is, the condition was so novel that it seems not to have been fully anticipated, though some trou ble was looked for, and the force of fifteen men at the two-mile crib was recently doubled as a precautionary measure. Snow and ice accumulated near the openings and on a level with them, and was then carried inside, blocking up the apertures faster than it could be cleared away. Tugs and flreboats loaded with ice cutters and diVers were hurried out through the frozen lake to remove the obstructions. Fortunately the milder weather that set in did not produce such large quantities of fresh

ice as to increase the difficulty, and permitted the laborers to contend to better advantage with that already accumulated. The deprivation was so short-timed that comparatively little harm was done by the failure of the pumpirig-engines to do their usual work, but it was a pretty bad scare while it lasted, not the least element of uneasiness being the dread of Are breaking out while the water was shout off. The city was entirely without water for over eight hours.

CRIB, TWO MILE OUT.

TUG BEATING THROUGH THE ICE TO THE CRIB.