New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-05-10

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Thus the tonnage transported on the
Mississippi in 1871 by vessels producing
waves, amounts in the aggregate to 1874,
900. Every ton and every pound of this
freight sent its corresponding ton of wave
against our banks at an average velocity
which, after some reflection, we have placed
at six miles per hour, or 8.8 feet per second.
To appreciate the effect of this prodi.
gious force, we can but multiply the 1884,
oOO tons by S.S feet per second, and it
impels force of Is, 787 900 tons, running
currently the entire line of our banks and
levees OF 1000 miles, every consecutive point
receiving this force.
1t is incredible, thus, that in addition to
the burdens the levees originally assumed
of current lapse aud occasional wind waves.
the leyees and banks of the Mississippi
river should bear this servitude, and that
the people who live along these river fronts
should be able to bear the burden of re-
building and repairing them forever.
Certainly portion of this burden should
be now assumed by those whose commerce
forever attacks and batters them down.
No power but that of the general govern
ment can reach a case so ramified and
touching the interests of people in so many
States.
A PERFECT LEyEE SYSTEM WILL IMPROVE
THE NAVIGATION OF THE RIVER.
There is another view in which this subject
commends itself to national consideration
Receiving the streams of twenty States and
daily freighted with their rich argosies, the
Mississippi river is essentially a national
avenue of commerce. and everything tend
ing to its safe navigation is matter of ex-
treme interest to the government. There is
no doubt that if we had an efficient system
of levees from Cairo to the Cult these dan.
gers to navigation that now environ vari-
GUS points on it would cease to exist and
there is no practical engineer familiar with
that river who would not agree that the
best mode to make safely navigable river
would be to confne the water within en-
bankments, and thus let it scour out it's
channel.
THE RELATIONS OF THE SOUTHERN RAILROAD
SYSTEM TO THE RECLAMATION OF THE MIS-
sfssIPPI VALLEY FROM NUNDATION
The necessity of easy and safe transit
across the Mississippi below the mouth of
the Ohio Is as great in the long future as
ABOVE that point. Such is the dependence
OF the country IN its new phase of material
progress that it can not dispense with or
forego the utilities of railways connections
everywhere. But with the annual inunda-
tons OF the delta, railroads are impractic.
able. While there are some seventeen
crossings above the delta, there are Only
tnree routes completed across the alluvium
below in all the one thousand and eighty
miles of the rivers windings or the six
hundred miles of length of the delta. And
all these three have been in operation for a
series of years, and have demonstrated
the peril and disasters of RAILWAYS
beneath the level of the flood.
waters. None of these are in original
hands, having been whelmed in ruin by the
floods. Railways are impossible on this
basin unless the levees are kept up. Indi-
viduals and the State have done their ut.
most to keep them secure. No power but
that OF the general government is capabIe
OF doing this; The Arkansas Central. the
Memphis and Little Rock, and the Missis.
ssippi,. Ouachita and Red River railroads
IN Arkansas, and the North Louis-
lana and Texas railroad in Louisiana
the latter the direst prolongation eastward
OF the Texas and Southern Pacific railroad.
are flooded annually by water that escapes
from the Mississippi river in Arkansas
Louisiana could not if she would give the
latter road protection from overflow even