The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1882-10-04
THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER PROBLEM.


The whole valley is filed with silt at least
thousand feet deep. In order to have de.
posted this silt thus all over the valley the
river must have flowed in different ages in
all parts of the valley, doing for countless
centuries just what it is doing o-day--build-
ing up sand-bars and mud banks, breaking
and cutting them again, and tossing the
atoms from place to place, dropping them at
low water, and shifting them in floods, but
always bringing down more, and building
the valley up higher and higher and carry
ing the delta out farther and farther to sea-
If the supply of material holds out, the
Gulf of Mexico must inevitably become
dry land, as the arm of the sen above it has
done.
The character Of the slit which forms this
"made ground is an important factor in
the problem. 1t is chiefly mineral In lie
formation, and is of great specific gravity
but there is considerable admixture of veg
etable matter, which doubtless is the cause
of its exceeding fertility. Being formed OF
heterogeneous atoms brought in solution by
the water, and not having amalgamated
thoroughly, at least on the surface, or where
the water can reach it, it remains soft, solu
BILE mud, which is capable of resisting the
action of water only by means of gravity
1t has almost no cohesion, and offers nc
proper foundation for any work that is OF
greater specific gravity than itself It is
used as material for the mud banks called
levees, which have been until lately the only
engineering works on which reliance has
been placed, for there is no other mate.
rial there to use, but from the fact that
it is soluble it is poor material for such
works.
These facts, thoughtfully considered pre-
sent difficulties enough in the way of engi-
neering works, but the main difficulty is yet
untouched. This lies first in the magnitude
of the river itself, secondly in the variations
in its volume, and thirdly in its variations in
altitude and speed. This may seem like a
variety of difficulties instead of one, but that
one all lies in the effort to control a vast
stream which constantly varies in volume,
altitude, lateral position, and speed. It is
evident enough that it would be COMPARE
lively simple thing to control smaller
stream of as obstinate nature, or one
equally as large that should not change from
month to month in its conditions. One
can manage a puddle, or protect himself
from the sea, but against thing that is
alternately puddle and sea it is difficult TO
act. #gA
The stretch of bottom-land over which the
river rolls from st. Louis to the sea is from
twenty to two hundred miles wide, and
seven hundred miles long. Over this fiat
surface (for it is almost fiat, sloping gently
to the sea- the river meanders, cutting
shifting groove in the soft mud, that is 1900
miles long. Why it does not cut for itself q
straight line, thus securing fall of fifty.
eight one-hundredths of n foot per mile, in
stead of thirty-on one-hundredths of foot,
which it now has, seems strange until we
stop to consider that ii carries its own OBJ
structions with it until they become too
heavy to carry. Then dropping them in its
9 ql%lEnls IpattR It baF ta rAp osFanpa then II
away the ground it has made, for if it were
Strengthened and kept straight, as has been
proposed by Captain Eads, it would have a
direct tendency to do this, which tendency
would have to be counteracted by other
means. BY the increased slope it would ac-
quire increased rapidity, and would carry to
the sea as great burden as it has at st.
Louis, II not greater.
AS to the variations in the river between
high and low water, they are almost incon-
ceivable to one who has not witnessed them.
They are as if the Hudson River should once
a year food the second floor of the City Hall
in New York city, and occasionally in a
"fiood year" flow over the third floor and
The problem before the Mississippi engineers
is to be compared with the question how,
with such floods, serviceable piers could be
constructed on our river-front if there were
no rock foundation less than one thousand
feet deep. One is no more difficult ques-
ton than the other, excepting that on the
Mississippi there are thirteen hundred miles
to look after.
During the foods of last spring the Miss
issippi River from Cairo to the sea--1100
miles--had an average width of not less
than twenty miles, and an average depth
from shore to shore of not less than ten feet.
OF course much of this was slack water, or
the backset caused by the overflow. All
this volume Of water was not flowing to the
sea with the full force that comes of fall Of
fifty-eight -hundredths of foot. II it
had been, there would have been little use
in asking to-day what is to be done for the
valley, for there would have been very little
valley left. But the volume of water was
there, and If it could have escaped into the
sea as rapidly as it flowed into the valley
from above it would still have been too large
to lie in its bed.
The problem in brief, then, is to decide
how to keep within fixed bounds stream
that flows in varying volume over a bed of
mud, without banks that can be called
banks. -Daod A. Curtis, IN Harpe,'s Mag
dzine.