The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1882-04-22
VOL IA.
Correspondence.

SAY ASToNIA, TExAs, April 4, 1882.
Editor Greenville Times:
| regretted to see the publica-
tion of a portion of my letter to
you of the 2Sth of February. Had
| intended it for the public would
have been more explicit. But since
it HAS appeared, and been made
conspicuous by &C. Co. whose
communication / have to-day read
in your issue of the 25th ult., /
will explain more fully the ideas l
crudely expressed at the time of
writing to you.
Think to any unprejudiced mind
the tenor of my letter would plain
ly show that the idea | intended
to convey was the adoption of
some means for reducing the alb
normal flood line in that portion of
the levee district alluded to, viz:
from Rosedale to Greenville. In
this connection used the follow
ing expression: 81 can see no re-
lief for the existing state of affairs
except to lower the flood line by
few judicious cut offs, say one
at Tarpley and one at Utopia.'
OF course the Levee Board has
neither the authority nor the
means to do work of this nature.
But l do believe there are means
within its power (Which | will ex-
plain further on) by which some
relief of this kind can be obtained.
In saying "the levees protecting
the above mentioned section are
already of, if not beyond, the max
imum size formed of the material
these are,n l did not of course
mean the entire line, but only such
large levees as those about the
head of Lake Bolivar and such
treacherous material as that upon
which aud of which these levces
are built. Judging from the ami
mus of G. C.'s communication he
must be one specially interested in
the rebuilding of the levees at the
head of Lake Bolivar, and he for
one evidently knew that what |
said applied particularly to said
levees; for he tries to divert public
opinion from these facts, made ev-
ident by the late breaking of them,
by the attempt to make it ap-
pear that the cause of the disas'
ter here as well as. throughout the
entire district was owing to the
inadequate hight of the levecs'
And that / was the author Of their
incapacity to resist a food, the
like of which was never before
known, and whose devastating ef-
fects are felt throughout every
portion of the Mississippi Valley
from Cairo to the Gulf.
The levees built by me were, ex-
cept in one or two instances, made
3 feet and those repaired and en-
larged % to 3 feet higher than the
highest water then known, as the
recorded level and cross section
notes in the Engineers Office will
show. G. G. says, "As far as my
observation of the present flood
goes . they the levees,
were literally overtopped by from
6 inches to 3 feet of water" II
this be true, which | very much
doubt, it would show, that where
there was no wear of the levees by
travel, there was food line from
3 to 6 feet higher than ever before
known.
During my term of Office | built
81 levees, aggregating 4S.65 miles
in length, and repaired and en-
larged A levees, aggregating 40.3t
miles. From your published lis1
of breaks, as well as l can locate
them, it appears that but two O
the levees built by me have broken
viz: Riverton and Wade levees
Of those | enlarged but one gave
way, viz: Clay and Baggot levee
In the Fall of 1876 | hurriedl,
topped off, without enlarging, thu
Miles and Easton levees and the,
have since been worn down by
travel to their former hight. l
the breaks of Catfish Point are OF
the upper side they are in thu
levees which l enlarged, but if ol
the lower side they are not. Ye
even in the face of these facts G
G. says: awe had to hurriedl,
raise nearly every leyee in the dis
trict recently built, and in thi
class were generally the breaks
the older levees giving compare
lively little trouble" In addition
to this general remark G. G. dwell
particularly upon the Clay AM
( Baggot levee as one of my "grav'
mistakes" and seeks to throw tn
roononeihilit,- of ifa hraal.inp unol