In particular, chapter 6 recurs to the peculiar unhealthiness of the marshlands which is attributed partly to endemic malaria.
To construct it in the place which was mostly marshland was a technically very demanding project.
The presence of algae statospores in this level indicate that the soils were from a wet marshland environment.
Consequently, there could have been a dramatic increase in the carrying capacity for fish and water fowl when a more profitable foraging marshland was created.
Instead, the real motivation behind the ordinance seems to have been to prevent the tops of oil derricks from being seen by existing homes on the bluffs overlooking the marshland.
Towns were not uniformly 'consumers of men', and the key epidemiological divide in this region was not between town and countryside but between marshland and non-marsh terrain.
In addition to a more reliable or permanent source of water, the vast marshlands would have been an incredibly productive environment in terms of wildlife, fiber resources, and organic soils.
If draining stops, marshland and wetland will return; if grazing stops, scrubland will return on pasture and open woodland—and, eventually, mature deciduous woodland—will reappear.
