Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-03-19
TO LEyEE OR NOT TO LEyEE

The country generally has been aroused
by the disastrous foods from which we are
now suffering, to a conviction that the call
from the West and Southwest for Mississippi
improvements was not a mere grab" for
government money, as so many similar de-
mands are. The question is rising into
prominence OF whether grand levee-build-
ing system should be begun or the mattress
jetty system introduced. 1t is undeniable
that many persons whose property is pro-
tected by levees have long questioned
whether they were the best defenders against
foods, and the startling experience to which
the people along the course OF the river are
now subjected is 'increasing the ranks of the
doubters. We see that it is argued by some
of those who approve of levees, that their
failure to protect under the unusual mass of
water now seeking exit at the Gulf, is no
more an argument against them than
it is to object to building churches
or houses because they cannot with
stand the attack of a high wind or a
eyclone. This argument is correct. A church
or house is not built for the purpose of such
incidental protection; levees, on the con-
trary, are built solely with view to protec-
ton, and protection that fails to protect
when extremity comes is like an army that
looks very we'll in peace, but runs away
in war. The most important objection
to levees, however, is that they Increase the
evil they are intended to remedy. The Mis-
sissippi river carries large amount of sedi-
in nd he
that sediment raises the bottom of the river
bed to higher level, as we see is the case
when we journey down to New Orleans by
boat, and from it look down on the adjoin-
ing land which is below the surface of the
stream. OF course that surface was not at
that relative hight when levees were first
constructed. In other lands rivers carrying
large amount of matter in suspension, and
that have been provided with levees for gen.
erations, show this result OF raising the river
bed in a still more striking manner. AS the
bed of the river mounts higher the leyees
must be raised in proportion; the work is
one which is never completed. In another way
the levee is a disadvantage. In proportion as
the bed of the river rises the inclination of
the plane down which the water runs is de-
creased, and the rapidity OF the current is
also decreased accordingly. As the current
becomes more sluggish it loses power to carry
all the earth held in suspension, and the de-
post of it increases, which hastens the rising
of the rivers bed. We invite the reader to
reflect upon this grand and irremediable de-
feet of the levee system-a defect not in
ferred by theory, but seen to be existing in
the Mississippi and in other great and sedi-
ment- bearing rivers. If the levees fail, to
what must we have recourse? Evidently to
the lowering of the river-bed by deepening
the channel. This is to be accomplished on
Captain Eads's jetty system, by which he
made the water scour out for itself bed
thirty feet below the surface where only eight
and a half feet was found before the mat
tresses were put down. Here, in the remedy
as in the defect, there is no theorizing; actual
and existing facts impart certain knowledge
in both cases. The levees must be retained
and repaired as temporary expedients, but
permanent benefit can be gained only by
ds,nenine the channel