Lake Michigan near Chicago was a filthy place, for it was the dumping-place for the city's sewage. We used to leave the clean blue-and-green water and sail into the filth, particularly if there was a brisk offshore breeze, long before we reached the city itself, and we would have lynched our watchman if he had failed. to fill our water-tanks aboard the vessel before we came within twenty miles of Chicago. As we came closer to the city, and passed the "cribs" through which water from the lake was being drawn into the pumping stations to supply the people with drinking water, we would see a thick, muddy scum on the surface and all manner of disgusting impurities. In those days Chicago had a high typhoid death rate, whereas to-day the rate is one of the lowest for large cities. Of course nobody would think seriously of letting the filth of a city the size of Chicago be turned back into the lake.

The Chicago Drainage Canal, as I said, is a comparatively small spout. Where Lake Michigan enters the Chicago River is a gap about 350 feet wide and, roughly, 18 feet deep, and the inflow is between 5,000 and 10,000 cubic feet per second, as compared with 250,000 second-feet through the River St. Clair.

Another factor is involved in the lowering of lake levels which an old-timer is quick to recognize. Lakes Michigan and Huron border chiefly on Canada and the States of Michigan and Wisconsin, and derive much of their water from those regions. All three were once noted for what was thought to be their inexhaustible forests of timber, principally pine. But time and progress have about wiped out these forests, with the usual result of lessening the amount of rain and snow.1

1

So, as the amount of water running out of the lakes has been greatly increased, the amount coming in has been decreased. And now what are some of the effects?

In 1922 I was assigned to represent the owners in the construction of a new vessel, the James MacNaughton. She was one of the finest freight-carrying vessels on the lakes at the time she was built, being 600 feet long with a 60-foot beam, and costing over a million dollars. Bigger ones have been built since. She was made to load to a depth of twentyfour feet, but her owners figured on loading her to twenty-one and one-half feet, at which she had a capacity of 15,000

1 Foresters generally consider this a demonstrated fact. In one document issued by the New York State College of Forestry ("Forestry for the Private Owner," Moon and Belyea) is this passage: "Investigations carried on by European foresters have proved that large masses of forest cover located upon mountain-tops do undoubtedly increase the amount of snow and rainfall locally. Zon believes that the amount of precipitation enjoyed by the States lying in the interior of this continent is dependent to a large degree upon the amount of forest cover situated across the track of prevailing winds."

net tons. In the fall of 1923, during the second half of the navigation season, lake levels dropped so low and channels got so shallow that the authorities allowed vessels to load to a depth of only nineteen and one-half feet; this year the loading draught has been still further reduced to nineteen feet.

You can easily figure the loss in carrying capacity on the James MacNaughton. We have to put eighty tons aboard of her to drop her one full inch in the water. A difference of twenty-four inches, which is the difference between the allowed draught and the expected draught, means that we have to load her with nearly two thousand tons less than we otherwise could. She loses almost one-seventh of her carrying capacity.

There are between six and seven hundred freight-carrying vessels on the Great Lakes to-day, and, while not all are as large as the James MacNaughton, still plenty can load to twenty-one feet and more. Every one of these vessels bears its share of loss when the channels are so shallow that it is necessary to limit cargoes; and, as the shipping season on the lakes is short at best, it works a hardship on all shippers who find that the economical way to get their products to market is at least partly by water.

It means too much to the country to let a waste like this go on. Hardly anybody except those directly interested body except those directly interested seems to realize the extraordinary amount and importance of the traffic handled on the lakes. It can be brought home by a comparison. The well-advertised Panama Canal was opened for tised Panama Canal was opened for commerce August 15, 1914, and completed nine years of business on August 14, 1923. During those nine years 84,284,474 tons of cargo passed through. That is a lot. But compare it with the freight tonnage for one year at Sault Ste. Marie, which is open only a part of each year, while the Panama Canal is open the year round.

There passed through the Soo in the 1916 season 91,888,219 tons of freight that is, 7,000,000 tons more than passed at Panama in nine years. The year 1921 was the worst in a decade for lake freight, but even that season the cargoes at the Soo amounted to 48,259,254 tons. The value of this freight runs into hundreds of millions every year. In 1920 it was worth $1,119,774,214.

This furnishes some idea of the size of the lake freight traffic, but it is not the complete picture. Only the freight bound to or from Lake Superior ports passes through the Soo. Add the freight that runs between Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Buffalo, and other points, including Canadian ports, and you begin to get a true idea of the

enormous traffic these lakes support during the half-year or so they are open to navigation.

Once, aboard the vessel that took me first to Lake Superior (that was in 1866), our captain did not know the upper lake, and had Dan Boyd aboard for sailing master. I was the watchman, and my principal job was to keep the lights trimmed. It was night; we were off Eagle River, and bound for the port of Superior-there was no Duluth in those days and nobody was about except Dan Boyd, the wheelsman, and myself.

"Dan," said Boyd to me, "I'm going to bed; I'm sick. You don't need to bother about any lights except the one in the pilot-house. Keep that burning and see that the wheelsman doesn't fall asleep. That's all you need to do. It will be all right. We won't meet anything tonight. There's only one vessel in this part of the lake, and she's at Ontona gon."

Only one vessel in that part of the lake, and Dan Boyd knew where she was! Nowadays in the height of the season it is rare for a vessel on any of the lakes to be out of sight or sound of another vessel for more than a few minutes.

Engineers affirm that lake levels can be maintained by proper river dams, and this has already been done for Lake Superior with the contrivance across the St. Mary's River. The cost of constructing these retarders, or compensating works, as they are called, is not prohibitive; in fact, the Sanitary District of Chicago offered-foolishly, in my opinion to pay the entire cost in order to have the privilege of continuing to take lake water for the Drainage Canal. If it is worth that to the people of a single city, think what it means to the other millions concerned. In the matter of lake shipping Chicago has to sneeze when Cleveland takes snuff. And in the matter of hydroelectric power the great projects are located at Niagara and on the St. Lawrence, and these are directly concerned with lake levels because they must have plenty of water to turn their

turbines.

If we are to maintain lake navigation profitably, even at present depths, the building of these retarders, which should be an international affair, ought not to be delayed. Until they are built, or until some other good way is found to allow the passage of vessels drawing at least twenty-two feet without emptying the lakes, the problem will remain acute We have reached that and get worse. point where it is impossible to dig channels deeper fast enough to keep ahead of the fall of lake levels; the more they dig, the shallower the channels become.

T

HE fastest growing outdoor sport by all odds is automobile gypsying. Twenty-one years ago the motor car was a rather unpromising, wheezy infant; and not a single automobile route penetrated the sage-brush and sand west of Nebraska, nor had motor camping-like the well-known chick"scratched yet." But during 1903 three automobile trails were blazed across the continent, and, due to the inhospitable condition of the country west of Omaha, the first long-distance gasoline trippers carried a complete camping equipment, so that they could stop and set up housekeeping just where night or the inclination overtook them. Thus motor camping was inaugurated as a parasite, and a parasite it still remains, for vacationing with one's lares and penates carried snailwise is dependent on the sturdy backbone of some kind of motor chassis, be it truck, automobile, or trailer.

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Although three independent parties of gasoline pioneers succeeded in crossing the continent in the early days of the automobile (one by way of the Sacramento River Valley to Anderson, the Pitt River, and the desert region of southeastern Oregon; another, via a trail through Nevada from Reno to Cobre, following the right of way of the Southern Pacific; and the third expedition, starting likewise from the Pacific coast, was the first to explore what has since become one of the most popular routes, the direct line across Utah to Granger, Wyoming, and the Oregon Trail to

By FRANK E. BRIMMER

Omaha), still no bona fide transcontinental highway was opened until nine years later. This was the Yellowstone Trail, established in October, 1912. One year later the Lincoln Highway was founded. It is significant that almost as rapidly as automobile trunk lines were established the motor caravansary appeared, at first sparsely scattered along peared, at first sparsely scattered along the principal sections of the routes west of the Mississippi, but to-day located in almost every city and town on the main thoroughfares, so that one may march his autotent from one end of the land to the other and spend every night under his own canvas in a municipal motor camp. In a little more than twenty years the automobile has revolutionized the average American's vacation, it has brought about a renaissance of the outdoors, and it has firmly planted a brand-new outdoor sport. Between five and ten millions motor-gypsied last year.

Just as the automobile reaches out and touches the life of Americans in every walk of life, so motor camping has spread out its fingers and embraces every class. Judging from telegrams and letters received as a result of weekly motorcamping talks broadcast from WMAQ, Chicago, as well as an exceedingly heavy correspondence that comes to "Outers' Recreation," it is easy to see that autocruising is no respecter of persons. It is undoubtedly true that ten years ago motor camping was just a bit "irregular" and was adopted rather from the force of

circumstances than because of any widespread appreciation of its recreational value; but to-day, especially in the West, and indeed throughout the country, it is as universally omnipresent as the automobile itself. One does not have to feel "conspicuous" any longer when driving on a city boulevard with an outfit-gorged car; indeed, at least three well-known automobile manufacturers are building special sport models for the convenience of the gasoline vagabond, who only needs to fold down the back of the front seat to make his sedan his bedchamber, while the kitchenette is waiting on the runningboard or luggage-carrier in the rear. Besides special automobiles there are various standard camping cars with complete home conveniences built upon a truck or automobile chassis, as well as a dozen different types of excellent camping trailers with complete accommodations for four or five persons craftily built upon two pneumatically shod wheels that will follow your car anywhere as obediently as Mary's little lamb.

One of the most interesting developments of the last decade has been the invention of various accessories for the motor gypsy. Perhaps one of the most typical is the pressure-feed portable gasoline stove, of which there are a dozen different styles, burning the same fuel as the automobile-a parasite of the gasoline tank. A single manufacturer of this type of stove sold over 150,000 of his merry little camp ranges last year.

Another commodity that motor camp

ing has sired is the autotent, and this article is made in more than a score of excellent styles by probably twice that number of huge concerns. Recently a well-known fishing-tackle manufacturer told us that the motor tents he originated two or three years ago had raced past his fishing-tackle business of many years' standing; two other canvas and awning concerns, one in New York and the other in Chicago, recently said that they were pushing into the background their circus tops, ships' sails, and other lines for the tremendous demand for autotents. manager of one of the country's largest and best-known sporting goods houses. told me that his customers were no longer hunters and fishermen first and campers second; indeed, according to this man, who has spent a lifetime in the trade, motor campers represent the great bulk of sportsmen, and after they have selected their outing outfits they then turn to the fishing tackle and firearms departments. This is not surprising when one remembers that there is no "closed season" on motor camping nor do "no trespass" signs worry the gas nomad. Of all autotents appearing in the last ten years, some flourishing for a season and then wilting, others evolving through a half-dozen models before the final stage .of perfection was reached-resembling in this respect the automobile itself-the

Still another motor camping accessory that one meets on every hand is the portable ice-chest, in trunk or basket form, made for carrying perishable food. Oldstyle camping was not popular, because few liked to go forth and play Spartan

even with the chance of being able to boast about it in public later; but motor camping is just the reverse, because it enables the whole family to set forth, just as in those rosy, covered-wagon days, to housekeep the trail in all the comforts ordinarily ascribed only to a permanent domicile. One of the things that has most to do with taking the sting out of modern camping is the portable icebasket, for with it the chef on tour may present the same variety of food, prepared in almost as great a variety of ways, as any one is accustomed to expect at a hotel. Within the recesses of the little ice-basket one carries through the sweltering sun the butter, milk, cream, fresh-cut meat, vegetables, fruit, and so

Once on a two weeks' trip through the Catskills in the Empire State we carried safely through the heat of August the modified milk for our five-months daughter in a portable motor camper's refrigerator.

Some of the most interesting, not to say surprising, motor gypsy accessories are running-board trunks that look innocent enough, but which, on occasion, are quickly metamorphosed into spacious picnic tables with benches or chairs as well as complete sets of cooking and eating utensils; or perhaps may be transformed within the space of three minutes into a most commodious portable bunga

low-beds, tables, chairs, culinary outfits from fry-pans to waffle-irons, and almost anything under the sun included, not excepting parlor, bedroom, and bath. You may wonder how a complete apartment for a whole family will jackknife itself into such compact space that it will carry on your running-board, or indeed in the tonneau or on a luggage-carrier in the rear, but, thanks to a good many new patents, ingenious minds have worked it all out nicely. Some folding furniture of ancient vintage may have had all the idiosyncrasies of the well-known inventor's time-clock bed, but this is decidedly not true of dozens of modern collapsible. motor camping conveniences.

Aside from many absorbing details incidental to the rapid growth of motor camping through the teething and adolescent period into a full-grown giant, there are even more interesting and far-reaching phases involved, and two of the more important are the recreational and economic side of this fastest-growing outdoor sport. Some would have us believe that the sociological view-point shows danger signs, arguing that the motor Wanderlust tends to untie a little too much the bonds of the hearthstone, that the public motor camp may tend to make us a communal-minded nation, that our children will be deprived of the home instinct; all of which is more ludicrous than alarming.

From the recreational standpoint, mo-, tor camping has taken hold of Americans as has no other participating sport, because it appeals to the heart of hearts in the breast of every lover of the outdoors, and, while certain limitations may keep a great many from golfing, fishing, canoeing, and the other outdoor sports, the only requisite for gasoline gypsying the forests, mountains, and beauty places of the country is an automobile. A Chicago realtor recently came to us with the statement that he had not enjoyed a vacation for three years, nor he did expect another for three more, and the vehicle he had selected to bring him the greatest good in the few weeks at his disposal was his high-power automobile used in conjunction with a complete camping trailer that he expected to take through the circuit of the National Park system, camping on Uncle Sam's real estate in some of the hundreds of public motor caravansaries in the National Forests and Parks. A business man writes from the Virgin Islands that he expects to land in New York soon and buy a very elaborate motor camping outfit with which to motor bivouac his family, including a servant, across the country to California. A woman in Maryland asks us about the right camping outfit, stating that the party includes her husband and two

small children as well as a chauffeur and nurse. A Mid-Westerner, having tourcamped the West, decided, not without qualms, to motor camp the East, and six weeks along the Atlantic coast convinced him that hospitality and fraternity among motor hoboes was not confined to any neck of the woods, but, on the contrary, was universal. He returned singing a song, something of a parody, "Out ing a song, something of a parody, "Out Where the East Begins." But the significant thing is that motor camping is the recreation that is taking more Americans into the outdoors than any other outdoor sport.

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Facts, bulldog-like, may be rather harsh things to loosen in large sizes, but just a few authentic figures will indicate the wonderful recreational value of motor camping. Last summer over 600,000 campers stopped in Overland Park, Denver; more than 300,000 visited the three hundred public camps of Minnesota; 110,000 tented on long-distance trips along the Yellowstone Trail between Plymouth Rock and Puget Sound; 22,000 enjoyed the hospitality of Uncle Sam's huge thousand-car motor camp in East Potomac Park, Washington, D. C.; of the over 8,000,000 of motorists checked in the National Forests. over 1,000,000 carried camping equipment and spent their nights in the fifteen hundred camping parks maintained by the United States Forest Service; 168,000 motor campers invaded southern California, and the Sacramento Chamber of Commerce reports for northern California and the State at large another 50,000 gasoline campers; Spokane, Washington, entertained in her municipal motor

camps a total of 60,000; the Custer Battlefield Highway, extending from Omaha to Glacier National Park, reported 18,000 automobile campers last year; and the American. Automobile Association reported that one out of every four of its members carried a camping outfit, which, by the way, is considerably less than reports received from every other touring organization checking campers. To these figures a great many more might be added, but with grave possibility of duplication; for instance, the campers of the National Parks are not included because many of our National Forests adjoin parks, nor are several other transcontinental highway records given because of the hazard of misrepresenting facts that are very hard to pin down. The figures stated are from reliable sources and have been taken from representative sections. The story they tell is big enough.

The economic phase of the new avocation of automobile camping is something to conjure with, for overnight, so to speak, a gigantic industry has sprung up that represents a remarkable asset to the communities selling themselves to the tourists. Replying to our question as to the average value in dollars and cents of the motor camper per capita per day, the following replies are worth pondering: Denver puts the count at $10 per day and the asset of her big motor camp of one hundred and sixty acres at over $600,000 for last season; Minnesota found that the motor campers in her midst left $4 each; Washington, based on the report of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, received $7 per day from

motor nomads; southern California reported $3.50; northern California placed the figure at $7.50; and the American Automobile Association, through the Washington, D. C., and New York offices, found that the average motor

CAR

Basing the estimate on what appear to be very conservative figures-that is, 5,000,000 motor campers on the trail but fifteen days each-the asset of straight motor camping towers up to the $400,000,000 mark annually.

ARS as far as the eye can seecars; rows on rows; cars coming and going; cars nosing into narrow crannies in the parking space; cars timorously backing out with grinding brakes.

"There's prosperity for you!" exclaims my friend and guide, exultantly. "There's millions represented in those

cars.

I fail to feel thrilled.

We slip into a sliver of space as its Occupant slips out, and proceed to the Midway on foot. The space between the competing side-shows and "hot-dog" stands is crowded with a moving mass of unlovely humanity; two currents-one flowing west, one flowing east, sluggishly, amid the strident calling of barkers and the raw impertinences of the orangeade venders. Girls, over-painted, giggling; pasty-faced clerks uproariously "kidding" their partners and each other; heavy-faced women dragging children; best citizens, overdressed; incarnate cheapness, silliness, flashiness; the procession moves on past the Fat Man and the Bearded Lady, past all the ancient

devised a thousand years ago to amaze big-eyed peasants at country fairs. These creatures are not peasants. They own automobiles; they have heard of airships; they cook, they sew, they light their rooms by electricity. They are not amazed by the worn-out trash; they are not amused; neither are they revolted or consciously bored. They pass down the Midway with the stream, "take in" a side-show or two, consume a "hot dog," drink a lemonade, eat some atrocious icecream, pass through the agricultural exhibit, the art exhibit, the mineral exhibit, not because they are interested, not because they are amused, but because there is a stream, and they are on it, and all life is floating on a stream, and it is inconceivable that it should be anything else. They will go home at forty miles an hour, and after supper listen to music played a thousand miles away and read the papers bringing the news from the

wheezes and monstrosit th

remotest islands of the sea; yet these things will not seem to them wonderful, but of the Midway they will say that it gave them a swell time.

The stream flows on, growing more full and turgid as it approaches the entrances to the grand stand. People are coming and going, passing against each other in the narrow passageways, talking of their bets, sending strident greetings across twenty feet of jostling men and women, good-natured, well-fed, unthinking.

"Hello, Tim!" cries my guide, as a portly individual obstructs farther progress. "Shake hands with the sheriff," he says, turning to me.

I do as I am told. The sheriff has a genial face, not without power of a sort; he would be relentless with all lawbreakers if he had it in him to inconvenience a friend.

The betting floor, under the grand stand, is crowded; it abuts on the paddock, and there is a pungent suggestion of horse stables in the air which is not unpleasant. Behind a counter a dozen men busily record the bets on the machines. Vixen appears to be the favor-. ite, hard pressed by Red Seal and Highfoot IV. Now Red Seal passes Vixen; now Emergency runs up unexpectedly and takes the lead. I find myself wondering why any one should bother about the actual race.

There are no ladies in this crowd; the sexes, it appears, may vote together, but. they gamble separately. The women's "betting parlor" is smaller than the men's, but quite as crowded. It is far ther from the wide opening that leads to the paddock, and is dimly lighted; it does not somehow lend weight to the doctrine of Goethe concerning the uplifting influence of the eternal feminine.

A bell rings; the race is about to begin. My guardian and friend leads me to his box. There are ten horses at the wire; another bell, they are off. It is the first horse-race I have ever seen. So this is thrilling? How interesting that this should be thrilling. I languidly watch

Number Five, who carries two of my dollars on his saddle. He falls back at the first bend and does not recover. Number Nine forges ahead; there is a neck-and-neck spurt to the tape, and Number Two wins.

I am not thrilled; I face the fact squarely, I am not thrilled at all. I feel mildly guilty; a normal creature should have normal reactions; not to have those reactions implies a perverse, unsocial individualism. Out of the past I see my indignant maiden aunt emerging, chiding me hotly for admitting that at a certain ball I had not "had a good time." "How dare you say that you did not have good time? Young men should always have a good time at a ball!"

No, I am not thrilled by the horserace. I am a highbrow, or I am hopelessly blasé; but I find myself thinking of the gamble and adventure of daily living; of each morning's enthralling record of yesterday's horror and grief and magnificent struggles against odds, the outreaching of the mind, the upreaching of the spirit, the delving, the fighting against darkness, the intellectual fencing matches with masks removed and rapiers pointed to draw blood; the searching under the sea and over the clouds; the unostentatious uncovering of secrets jealously held since time began by stars ten million miles away.

Perhaps horse-races were exciting in the stage-coach, candle, whale-oil age. No doubt, no doubt.

There is a low whirring in the distance, and in half a minute a loud whirring close overhead. An airplane circles about the field, flies south, wheels, returns, makes a nose dive, recovers, flies south again, and again returns.

All heads turn upward a minute, two minutes; but the gong recalls the watchers to the real excitement, and the aviator goes through his "circus" unregarded. In the Midway the stream flows on, and the children of the Prodigious Century float with it, caught by the strange hypnotism of banalities hallowed by

time.