Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 305, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 December 1918 — Plan on Foot to Reclaim Dismal Swamp, Picturesque Haunt of the Naturalists [ARTICLE]

Plan on Foot to Reclaim Dismal Swamp, Picturesque Haunt of the Naturalists

■ Dismal swamp, which lie's just south of Norfolk, Va., partly in that state and partly in North Carolina, is one of the most picturesque wildernesses in the eastern United States. Although It may be reached from the busy port of Norfolk within a few. hours by a boat which piles daily up and down a small canal, the Dismal swamp remains an unspoiled wilderness where black bears and panthers still' x roam, While the smaller creatures of the wild, exist In abundance. The thick jungles and bottomless bogs at once offer perfect hiding places for the wild things and, obstacles to the hunter which are often impassable. Then, too, the swamp is, alive with snakes —the deadly copperhead and moccasin being especially abundant —and this fact alone considerably from the popularity of the places as a pleasure resopt? It Is nevertheless regularly visited by some hardy hunters, and IS the delight of naturalists and scientists of all kinds, who hete hpd what they most love— nature. The Dismal Bwsß>p\has great possibilities of future? usefulness. In the first plfioe, it contains some of the deepest and richest deposits of peat tho .TTnltort Rtnfps. find this fuel is

undoubtedly to be-Vsed In this country In the near fuftire. Furthermore, engineers sy ,»that the swamp cnn be drained, anu that it wiH then become one of the richest bits of farm land in America. Indeed, one man has already demonstrated this by draining a few hundred acres of the swamp, and raising phenomenal crops on It