Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 August 1908 — HORACE W. MARBLE DITCH NOW BEING SURVEYED. [ARTICLE]

HORACE W. MARBLE DITCH NOW BEING SURVEYED.

Ditch Commissioners Are Making Survey and Preparing Report to Submit to the Court.

The vastness of this proposition to scarcely comprehended by those who have not given it special co-sld ration. As above stated the mileage proposed in the Marble petition is about twenty-five, and it is estimated that it will affect some 300,000 acres of land. It is believed that the improvement will cost from $250,000 to $300,000. It will probably be recommended by the viewers that the ditch be 100 feet in width, and 12 feet deep, which will make it about 6 feet below the present river bottom, and in some places more. The upper end of the Kankakee, that is from the eastern Jasper county line to South Bend, a distance of almost 50 miles, has been widened and deepened, and at the same time straightened, and it is said that the new channel crosses the old channel many times and that when the water is still quite high, the bottom of the old channel can be sew above the surface of the water in the new channel. Thousands of acres of land have been much benefited by the above improvement, but the fullest result can not be attained until the lower end of the river is similarly treated. The survey made some three years ago by the government engineers left no doubt that the lowering of the channel would drain vast thousands of acres of valuable land. There is a toll of about 1 foot and 4 inches per mile for the distance of the proposed Marble ditch. This improvement leaves a strip of three miles between the upper end and the improvement already completed „ud this will have to be provided for iu a separate petition and will probably be done. It looks very much now as though the Kankakee drainage, for so many years discussed, is certain to become a reality, and Jasper county will be the better for it by many times its cost, for come of the best land there is in Indiana lies along the river bottom, but the high waters of the spring prevent its cultivation. J

Attorney A. Halleck returned Tuesday Evening from a trip up on the Kankakee river, where the commissioners for the proposed great Kankakee ditch, on the petition of H. W. Marble, et al, are making their survey. He was accompanied to the river by Mr. Marble and they spent two days there. The' commissioners are, D. W. Waymire and Hugh Gamble, of Rensselaer, and Jas. Carson, of Hebron, a former commissioner of Porter county. They have four assistants for stake holders, chain men, etc. The commissioners began their work at the upper end of the improvement, which is about three miles from the eastern Jasper county line, and they are working down stream, making the survey, setting stakes and taking the level. The proposed improvement is 25 miles in length and extends across the north line of Jasper county and four miles along the Newton and Lake county line. After the survey is completed the ditch commissioners will view the surrounding country on both sides of the river and assess the lands asI fected, and determine the width and | depth of the channel cm they will i recommend in their report. It is ! not probable that the report will be : ready for the November term of the court, and, in that event, it can not be considered until the February term of the court The improvement is such a mammoth one, and so many thousand acres of land are affected and there are so many things to be considered in the report .that the viewers desire to have their report both exhaustive and infallibile. The fact that there has already been some opposition to the ditch and the apparent intention of continuing this opposition if a loop hole is left that might afford those who are lined up against it, a fighting chance, will make the petitioners do all in their power to present a report that is equitable and right.