Republican vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1857, 1849-08-13
NEW ORLEANS A DOOMED CITY.

very intelligent writer in the Memphis Daily
Enquirer, devotes a column Of that paper to the
consideration of the late Crevasses and the ulti-
mate fate of New Orleans. He very properly
saysthat the beds of all rivers which flow through
level country, like the territorial formation of
the Mississippi valley, gradually, but certain
ly filing up. This is the case, for instance, with
the Pc in Italy, of which the embankments at
Ferrara, so high that the surface of the river
is above the tops Of the houses The beds of the
Pc, Adige, &c, are filling up by the annual de-
posts OF detrltus brought down from the Alps
All these rivers are confined within their chan
nels by artificial enbankments like the levee on
the shores OF the Mississippi Men are talking
every day, of running these levees up to the
mouth Of the Ohio, and st. Louis. 1t is perhaps
among possibilities to do SO but what viii be the
consequence? Manifestly that the bed of tho
Mississippi will fiji up and elevate its waters un-
til by successive elevation of the entertainments
its bed would be ON leyel with the adjacent
country.
At New Orleans, since the embanking system
commenced, the bed of the river has been eleyat.
ed some 80 or 40 feet. This is proved by the
depth Of water which passed through Sauve
crevasse, the roar of which could be heard some
seven or eight miles In this creyasse the water
was about 80 feet deep. Here then we have the
startling fact revealed u.s. that the coasts on the
lower Mississippi are at this time, from six TO
nine months OF the year, far below the level Of
the vast deluge of waters which half a continent
pours out necessarily, and rolls along in silent
majesty to be swallowed up and lost in the ABYSS
OF the ocean,
1t may not be uninteresting here, to inquire
what will be the ultimate fate of New Orleans
This can, we think, be easily foretold. Obvious
ly, that city is doomed one for if the bed of the
river has been already elevated 80 feet since the
levee first began to protect it, very ready calcu-
lation may be made of the time required to raise it
30 feet higher. And if at its present elevation.
| the city has been one half submerged, to what
extent may we anticipate any subsequent breach.
when the waters shall sweep with ten-fold fury
through channel twice the depth, for TO this it
must GENE at last, however remote the time.
| In fact, the days of the increase of New Or
leans are already numbered. The child is now
born who will when he visits that city, find only
a few hundred instead Of the thousands of houses
now there. A great commercial depot there must
be somewhere below Baton Rouge, but it must
| be on higher ground, where business can be trans-
acted at a less fearful and appalling sacrifice of
human life.
There is indeed, but one excuse even now for
continuing to make New Orleans this depot; and
it is, that there is no other. That city was found
ed before Fulton brought steam into vogue on
| the Western waters. 1t was placed there because
it was accessible to shipping from the Gulf where
steam tow boats were not-and when it required
all the patience and nautical skill, favored by
wind, tide, setting poles and sping cables Of the
most experienced navigators to reach the port
This excuse for planting great emporium in the
very jaws Of death longer exists OF exists only
in the logic of the purse. It is question of dol
lars and cents against human life and human
suffering a question of bricks and mortar already
up in slaughter house for human victims.
. a met hric and fo6
locality where health shall find safer habita-
| ton,