New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1870-06-25
THE MIssIssIPPI LEvEEs.

Louisville Courier Journal:
On the second of June Senator Harris, G
Louisiana, offered the following resolution
n; which was adopted:
- '.Resolred, That the Committee on Fl
nance be instructed to inquire into the ex
pediency of taking measures by the genera
government to rebuild the levees upon tn
lower Mississippi river which wer
DESTROYED during the late war; ana ina
said committee have leave TO report NJ IN
next session of Congress-, by bill or other
WISE"
Perhaps there Is no subject of more con
sequence to one-thrd of the people OF thu
United States than this. Some facts pre-.
sented by Senator Harris should be widel.
circulated.
The Mississippi valley, he tells US. EN-.
braces two.thirds of our national domain
The river and its tributaries stfjrd watel
carriage of more than sixteen Thousand
miles, forming a system OF river navigation
uneoualed in the world, and with com
merce which Is so immense as to startle thu
imagination. In 1860, the foreign commerce
of the United States was S760 DOC. 900; but IL
1865, the trade of nine cities on the Missis
sippi and its tributary, the Ohio, was STAT,
100000, and the annual commerce OF Tn.
Mississippi valley is now estimated at 81, OOO,.
GEO. The products OF distant farms and
ducts of inland mines and factories and
workshops are expected to come in untold
quantity and variety in the future. Cotton
and sugar and fruits in turn go up the river,
and the products Of distant foreign lands are
transhipped to the interior. 1t isthus linked
in fortune aud interest to millions OF people,
and whatever adds to its wealth and securl'
ty, or to the area OF It's soil, aous 10 tuelr
resources as well.
Senator Harris very truly argues that the
restraint and safe direction OF this mighty
stream is too important to the country to
be left to private caprice or partial and con-
ficting State legislation. During the War 1t
was thought that the control Of the Missls-
sippi held the Union together. and that con-
troll was gained and the river kept open at
fearful cost OF treasure and blood. The
lower Mississippi, for over twelve hundred
miles, flows through alluvia! soil, easily
disturbed and displaced. Its floods are of
long duration, kept up by the early and
later rains along ix many tributaries, and
the melting of the SHOWS far above the falls
of St. Anthony and along the sides of the
Rocky Mountains and the Alleghenies, all
meeting and mingling, piling one flood upon
another and pushing the accumulated mass
of waters toward the gulf.
It is yearly occurrence for the river to
rise fifty feet above lOw-water mark, and for
weeks to keep at that height. Once in three
or four years it sweeps up even above this
level, and its force is destructive and resist
less. The great food of 1857 was ffty-six
feet above low water mark, and its damage
to crops counted millions OF dollars, saying
nothing of risk and loss Of life. No season
is safe from these periis. Annual IN the
spring and summer, they often come in au-
tumn to utterly destroy our crops. The pc
culiar formation Of the river bed adds to our
troubles, as the low lands slope downward
from the river and are thus still more liable
to overflow. This slope is very gradual, but
water finds its level with ease and rapidity,
and thus flows back over broken levees or
low banks with added force. The alluvial
soil ia easily dissolved and held in solution,
and as easily deposited by every change of
a strong and varying current. The force OF
this current sweeps along and deposits sand |
and gravel, as well as the finer alluvial, and |
thus come frequent changes in the river bed. |
BY careful scientific experiments, it is es |
tmated that the sediment is to the water by |
weight rs one to fifteen hundred. and by |
bulk as one to twenty-nine hundred. Like |
experiments on the Rhine, the Pc and other |
rivers in Europe flowing through aliuvial |
soils, and on the great food of the Asiatic |
Ganges, show like results and no very great |
variation. Besides the deposits along its |
bed, our river carries out to the gulf the |
mud and sand which have formed the delta, |
with its half-submerged soil, reaching out |
hundreds of miles south of the original gulf |
shores. Each year it is computed this |
great stream carries to the gulf
nearly three hundred feet deep. The low
lands in Mississippi and Arkansas and the
river bottoms and swamps of Louisiana
are submerged far and wide by the
overfiows of these great floods, and the
bayous that wind their way through the
are filled and swollen by these
waters, and set back over the adjacent
region, until no spot of ground is left for
miles wherein man can stand. The total
extends is at least thirty-two thousand
square miles, or twenty million five hundred
thousand acres. The discharge per second
1t NatcheZ is estimated at one hundred and
'ixty thousand cubic feet at low water, and
t swels TO over one million two hundred
thousand cubic feet at high flood. or over
our thousand million feet every hour.
Some idea may be gained of the devasta-
ion and power of floods by the breaks N
he imperfect levees and the body of water
hat sometimes rushes through these wide |
,aps. In the great flood of 1857 there were
oriy-fve crevasses or breaks from Helena to |
New Orleans. One, ten miles below Helena,
vas three thousand feet wide and eight feet |
leep. At or near Warrenton the water
i0WeQ TOur 1eet deep ana more tlan mile
n width from the main channel over the
plantations and lowlands, and just above 8
lew Orleans q stream seven hundred and s
fifty feet wide and twenty feet deep poured :
'ver the region around that great city and I y
ooded its very suburbs and streets. The
discharge of all these crevasses WAS COM q
'uted at tweDty-seven thousand cubic feet l
,er second, equal to lake a mile square I
nd eight feet deep every day.
But 1t may be supposed that the lands t
hus oyertlowed are mostly worthless I
marshes and swamps that never can be re-
laimed. While this is true of some Dor. .
ions, it is far from true of the greater part. u
t must be remembered that q large area S
ow under cultivation is liable to damage by v
GODS. The sugar plantations are mostly on t
)w lands, and many cotton plantations also. t
he damage to the crop in the Tensas bot n
ON, a fertile and cultivated region, est :
mated at 100000 in single year, will
i've some faint idea of the periled products. q
| perfect system of levees, such as can be o
1ade practical, as experience in Europe c
hows, would relieve this sense of impending O
anger and addimmensely to the wealth of +
be country at large.
A New York dispatch to the Louisville :
Io,vier Journal says: O
The Woodside, New Jersey, property of AL C
ert ID. Richardson, who was killed by Daniel G
fcFarlaDd in November last, was sold at the =
N@,p rNt,