By the statute of 1903 large additions of territory were made to the sanitary district so as to protect the lake water both north and south of the original area and the district now has an area of 386 square miles, of which 198,997 miles are in the city of Chicago. Sub ordinate canals have been cut in each of these territories, connecting ultimately with the main canal. The north shore channel is about eight miles long and the Sag Channel still incom plete, to drain the Calumet region, will be 16 miles long.
The main channel of the canal from river to river is 28.05 miles long. The width on the bottom varies from 110 to 202 feet. The min imum depth of the water is 22 feet. A project for a navigable waterway from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River was started by the appropriation of $5,000,000 by the Illinois State legislature in 1915. The State waterway will connect with the sanitary canal at Joliet and provide for an 8-foot channel to Utica. It is proposed later to complete this work to the Mis sissippi River.
The sanitary district has established at Lock port an electric generating plant at which elec tric power is created by the water passing through the sanitary canal. The city street lights are supplied with current from this water power plant. In 1915, 28,123 lights were thus supplied. The sanitary district also sells elec tricity to commercial users to a limited extent.
The hydro-electric plant is the largest publicly owned electric light plant in the country, and on the whole has been quite successful. Prior to the building of the sanitary canal the death rate from typhoid in Chicago was very high, but now it is one of the lowest in the country.
Public city department of public works has charge of the paving, repair and cleaning of streets and alleys, of the con struction and maintenance of sewers and of the city waterworks. There are in the city ap proximately 3,094.44 miles of streets, of which 2,059.34 miles are paved, and 1,592.07 miles of alleys. This is exclusive of the many miles of parkways and boulevards under the care of the various park boards. The city sewers empty into the drainage canal which diverts the city's refuse from the lake.
The waterworks system, which has cost up to 1915 $61,697,000, is owned by the city. The
plant has largely been built out of the annual revenue which in 1915 amounted to over $6,500, 000, an amount sufficient to cover the cost of the supply and to make extensions to the plant. The pumping stations provided the city during the year with about 213,003,000,000 gallons of water. The it capita use is 236 gallons per day — more at is said than in any other city of the country. The number of miles of pipe was 2,641 in 1915.
The City Chicago Public Library contains 627619 volumes. The main library building on Michigan avenue between Randolph and Washington streets, cost $2,000, 000. The income of the library board (the members of which are appointed by the mayor) is about $425,000, mainly derived from taxation. The library maintain3 33 branch reading-rooms and 109 delivery stations in different parts of the city. The T. B. Blackstone Memorial Branch Library is an Ionic building of gran ite and marble, with shelving capacity for 25,000 books.
The City city corporate, that is, the city exclusive of the board of edu cation, public library, park • boards and the Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium, has a total ordinary revenue of about $30,000,000 per year. This is also exclusive of the amount received for waterworks, for the payment of local im provements by special assessment, and other special trust funds, such as the amount received by the city from the operation of street rail ways which amounts to almost $3,000,000 per year. The gross public debt of the city of Chicago in 1915 was $31,924,600.
Institutions of Private The public spirit of Chicago citizens is manifest in many institutions endowed by private munifi cence for the public good.
The Chicago Art Institute is devotedto maintaining an art gallery and to conducting education in art. The museum contains ex cellent examples of the old masters and of modern painters, besides sculptures, etchings, engravings and many other appropriate art objects. The enrollment in the school is over 2,900 in all branches. The Ryerson Library of Art, a beautiful wing of the main building, con tains about 8,000 volumes. It also contains extensive and valuable collections of photo graphs and slides.