New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-02-14
WASHINGTON.
.fr. Ends Presents His Little Bilf t. the
Mouse Committee en- Railways and
Canafs-Nlr. Sypher's Reply-The Fort
-. philixa &ruual Nm tio.,.,k IsaaSsssie..

Fir. Ends Presents His Little BiIf t. e!,<
Eouse Committee on Railways and
Canafs-Nlr. Sypher's Reply-The Forl
st. Philip Canal a National Necessity
| WASHINGTON, February I3.-This morn
| ing Mr.. Eads, of St. LOUIS, argued
| before the House Committee ON Rail
| roads and Canals in favor Of opening the
| passes a. the mouth Of the Mississippi by
| /. system OF jetties. He read bill which
he had prepared to submit to the committee
providing that the government shall pay
| him and his associates $4,000, 900 in install.
menrs, as .hey shall perform the work.
s., coo, coo when twenty feet of water shall
be secured in the channel and the remainder
as the depth shall be increased.
When Captain Eads was through General
Sypher, who was present. REQ vested to be
heard in reply. He said:
Mr.. Chairman-f am greatly surprised
that the gentleman from St. Louis,
who bears SO enviable reputation
as an engineer. not only among his own
cOuntrymen, but in foreign nations, and
from which he has received high honOrs,
should be willing to lend himself to such .
visionary scheme as that just laid before
your committee. If an experiment with
his scheme involved nothing moro than the
amount necessary for q fair trial, the prOpo-
sition might be entertained. But, after
deepening the passes at the mouth of
the Mississippi river, among which was
scheme such as the gentleman proposes
now-the jetties Of Craig and Kighter-.
the people of the Mississippi valley are
not in condition of mind to tolerate fur
ther nonsense - al annual expense of ever
$l00,000,000.
The Mississippi river is a great national
highway, and the people will never consent
to committing its improvements into the
hands of private individuals. IF the jetty
system was an assured success, which it is
not by any means, the government could
not afford to allow q corporation to control
it. 1t is the duty of the government to i'm.
prove the navigation Of this great CONNER
cial channel, as much as it is it's duty to
control it for all military, naval and com.
inerciaf purposes, or to defend it from inva-
siOn by q hostile navy.
The gentleman cites sho fesr1ts OF the
jetty system at the mouth OF .he Sulna
outlet of the Danube in proof of the prac-
ticability of the same system for deepening
the mouth OF the Mississippi. The value Of
this experiment will be more clearly shown
by brief comparison of the character of
the two rivers and the bars formed at their
outlets.
The Danube. like the Mississippi, has
three principal outlets, the Kilia, Sulina
and st. George, with length of seventy
two, fifty three and fifty five miles respec-
lively. The length of Pass-a-FOutre and
Southwest Pass is fifteen and seventeen
miles respectively. No other features of
these two great rivers are similar. The
volume of water and the dimensions of the
bars differ widely. The quantity of sedi-
ment of the Mississippi is four times greater
than that of the Danube, and the sediment
in the latter is sand, which is easily secured
out by the current, while the sediment of
the former is mud and clay, forming Jumps
at the bottom. which can only be removed
by the rake Of a powerful dredgeboat
1t should admit. for the sake of argu.
ment, that j. IS possible to put in .jetties
sufficiently powerful 70 resist the
storms Of the gulf coast, I maintain
then that the effect would not be to scour
out the bottom to the depth required by the
commercial interests ot tina: river. but IT
would dam che water until it found another
outlet, lu5t az iS the case when q violent
storm from the gulf fills up the channel,
sometimes ia d singls night and destroys
the work of months.
Then, again, .upposing Che ie,tr system
should prove entirely successful. the cost
would greatly exceed that of the canal
The constant advance of the bar into the
gulf would require the ietties to be pushed
out at heavy expense. For forty years the
Of the mouth of the Mississippi
river has been agitated; various plans have
been tried, in all of which the engineers
have differed, excepting the Fort ST. Philip
canal. Since 1887, when Major Chase made
the first survey, l believe the engineers
have not differed as to the practicability of
that work. Now, after all these years of
among the gentleman's profes-
sion, with a most able and exhaustive sur
vsy made by the ablest engineers in the
United States army, which has just been
submitted to Congress, and bills pending in
both branches, and the friends of the meas
ure have martialed all their forces to de-
nand, in the name Of the people Of seven
teen States and Territories, the ensctment
Of this measure into law then this Utopian
vide our councils and dissipste our strength.
He 10 brave man who % willing to incur
he responsibility Of deieating tie Fort st.