New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-11-06

schemes tor the improvement of the navi-
CATION of the Mississippi have formed one
OF the foremost. The problem of deepen
ing the mouths OF that river in particular
is one OF. the most difficult which has ever
engaged the attention of engineers; and it
has now been for more than quarter of q
century the subject of discussion, of expert
ment and Of expenditure by the national
government. No device ever yet applied
has been successful in keeping open the
channel to The required depth for any long
period. The annual river and harbor bill,
as 1t passed Congress, appropriated large
sums to accomplish this object, 80 desirable
to the navigation of our largest river; vet
little was effected, and it became subject
of loud complaint that private enterprises
for propelling loaded vessels over the shall
low waters to the Balize imposed an onerous
tax upon commerce, and must be got rid of
at the national expense.
There have been two parties dramatically
opposed, in opinion and methods, as to the
needed improvements for deepening the
mouths of the Mississippi and providing
secure channel for commerce. The first
party, and until recently the strongest, were
Tor building one or more ship canals suffi-
GENTLY broad and deep through the alluvial
deposit at the mouth of the river, which
canals it was assumed could be kept open at
far less expense than would attend any
scheme for deepening the refractory mouths
Of the Mississippi itself The opposing party
held that no canal could be constructed
which would be available or permanent, and
that after expending millions upon it, re-
course must ultimately be had to some
method of making the river channel itself
permanent highway for commerce.
The canal party in 1854 marshaled their
forces at Washington, and fortified by the
report of a commission composed chiefly of
army engineers, carried through the House
of Representatives bill appropriating
$S,000,000 for the construction of ship
canal from the neighborhood of Fort St.
Philip to the South Pass on the Gulf of
Mexico. This canal was to be about thirty
miles long, and it was assumed that it would
at once upon its construction afford a rem
edy for all the evils which had interrupted
the navigation of this great river. The
bill, which passed the House by large
majority, was not equally successful in
the Senate, which adjourned without
passing any measure for the relief of
that river. The influences which were
at work in the Senate were palpa-
BILE enough. The great ant-canal party,
headed BY Captain James b. Eads of st.
Louis, who had been urging for years his
pet scheme OF .jetties, by which the river
Mississippi was to be conine within breast
works, and made to scour its own channel
to the sea, were powerful enough to defeat
the appropriation of the national treasure
to the construction of any canal And, at
the last session of ongress-lS74-75, the
party of the Mississippi jeuties rallied all
their forces, tackled the ietty scheme on to
the river and harbor bill in the Senate, IN
the closing hours of the session, and &C.
tually succeeded in carrying it through the
same House which had rejected the jetty
project, and passed the canal scheme only a
year before. This was done by the methods
familiar enough to legislators, and to those
who know how bills are got through Con-
gress. 1t was done by large and powerful
lobby, by facle committee of conference,
by using the fear of losing one OF the great
appropriation bills for carrying on the gov
eminent, and by reducing the House to the
alternative of accepting the conference re-
port and swallowing the Eads jetty
scheme along with it, or the refusing
to pass any river and harbOr bill at
all. This grand jetty scheme, having thus
passed Congress as piece OF midnight
legislation, with an appropriation of $3.50, :
900 to be paid from the treasury. in INSTALL
| ments as the work proceeded, is now in
course of construction. Occasional dis
patches from the theatre of operations have
been paraded in the newspapers of the
country, setting forth the great apparent
success in the first steps of the grand enter.
prise. With characteristic display grand
Eads the great promoter of the project and
contractor for its execution, at which the
General of the army was trotted out to
make one of his customary of hand and
felieitous speeches The country has been
told with great flourish OF trumpets how
| that, after sinking mile or so of obstruc-
tions along the sides of the channel, a
greater depth of water has been secured,
and the reluctant mud at the bottom of the
y4Uar has hpen ana ed pO,pDal led n mny q
on.
Without intending to PREJUDICE decisively
the result of this certainly great and monu-
mental undertaking. it may be wise for the
country to consider carefully the chances
for and against the success of this grand
jetty project. What are the facts! The
problem to be dealt with is of enormous
magnitude and difficulty. The Mississippi,
the father of rivers, maintains for dis
lance OF over 1000 miles above New Or
leans an average breadth of 1900 feet, with
q depth of lis feet on the average at high
water. 1t rolls its turbid contents in a
broad, deep current to the ocean, the area
of cross section OF the river averaging not
less than 100000 square feet. The average
fall at full water is three and one-quarter
inches per mile, and, in the absence OF floods,
two and eight.tenths inches per mile. The
discharge Of the Mississippi is computed by
Mr.. Ellet at high water at l,2SO,OO0 cubic
feet per second. The drainage of this vast
inland water way is estimated at ,226, 600
square miles. In the rainy season. the river
rises above it's summer level TO the enor-
nous extent of forty feet at the mouth of
the Ohio, and thirty feet at New Orleans.
The computed velocity of the current in the
Mississippi is about five miles per hour in
the center of the river, occasionally reach
ing the great speed of seven miles per hour.
This tremendous current carries along with
it, at all times, a vast amount OF earthly
matter, which, go long as tae river is con-
fined TO it's channel, the current is able to
carry forward. But the constant tendency
of this turbd and unmanageable stream is
to deposit vast amounts of mud, thus con-
tinually filling up its channel and creating
new ones unknown to navigatOrs.
The problem of the Mississippi, therefore,
differs materially from that of the Danube,
which debouches into tideless sea. The
so much Wanted success of the light stone
piers or jetties at the Sulina mouth of the
Danube, which several of the great powers
of Europe united in constructing in order
to maintain the navigation OF that river,
fails when it is attempted to draw from
them an analogy for the very different case
of the Mississippi. That prOdigiOus and
ungovernable stream makes its own laws,
and those laws are as shifting in the vaga-
ries which the stream exhibits in its course
as the orbit of any comet Which ever pur-
sued its erratic flight through the heavens.
Grant that Captain Eads' jetties are sue
cessfully planted, and that depth of water
equivalent to twenty or twenty five or thirty
feet, required as successive steps by the act
of Congress, is attained, what evidence have
we that the channel OF the Mississippi will
stay within those jetties for single twelve
month"; Its course in the past rather leads
to the conclusion that it will be continually
shifting its channel from year to year, and