The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1884-12-23
4 W ISE RULER.
Dom Pedro II. and Capt. Eads.

The emperor of Brazil has recently
sent an autograph letter TO Captain
Eads requesting him to visit the port
of Rio Grande do Sui and give his
opinion as to the proper mode of i'm
proving that harbor. The emperor
tells Mr.. Eads that an able Brazilian
engineer and Mr.. Hawkshaw, OF
Great Britain, have both prepared
plans for the works, but that the gov
eminent is unwilling to proceed with
out first submitting the question TO
him.
Mr.. Hawkshaw is perhaps, of all
other English engineers, the most ex-
perienced and celebrated. He wa.
the consulting engineer of the Am
sterdam ship canal, and his harbor
works are to be found all over the
world, as well as in Great Britain.
He is now constructing the largest
tunnel ever made under any river Cat
Severn, but Dom Pedro wants to be
sure he is right before spending his
millions. This is not exactly the way
our government has done. For years
it has been spending money
lavishly all along the Atlantic and
Gulf coasts on the plans of our
army officers, without submitting them
to the revision of experienced hydrau-
lie engineers, and the result has been
in almost every instance a miserable
failure. At Galveston, after ten y ars
of fruitless work on the harbor, the
delegation Of that state actually au-
thorized unanimously, the striking
out of the quarter million dollars put
In the river and harbor bill to carry
out the work there, on the ground
that the government plan was a com.
plete failure. The senate committee
on commerce, soon after, by an almost
unanimous vote, recommended the
placing of that improvement in the
hands of Capt. Eads. For years the
same corps of engineers were trying to
improve the mouth of the Mississippi.
The country became impatient of de-
lay and and after no end of opposition
congress put the least of the passes,
unused for navigation, and with but
eight feet depth on its bar, under con-
troll OF the same engineer and before
the act was year old, he deepened it
five feet; in less than two years he had
twenty feet, and in four years he had
a channel through it big enough for
the Great Eastern.
Our great river itself was subjected
to the talents of the army corps for
many years, and millions were una
vailingly spent upon it, and it was
not until the plan devised by Eads,
and which he had been for years urg-
ing against the opposition of the corps,
was applied under the direction of the
Mississippiriv commission, that any
benefit was secured. In one year Of
work, 1888, the low water depths
were doubled through two of the
worst reaches of the river, fifty-fve
miles long. Where the outlets we're
closed the foods failed to overflow
the levees and actually attained less
height, as be said would be the case
and where the plan and his ADVICE to
The commission were both disregardei
by leaving the Atchafalaya outlet
open, shoaling of the channel and
great over1ows just below it have also
occurred, just as he foretold would be
the case.
Manchester wants a ship canal to
the sea and planned one costing s40,-
900, 900. Ten miles of the works
were to extend into the estuary of
the Mersy whose tidal outflow is re-
quired to keep the bar In Liverpool
bay from shoaling up and destroying
that port. The various corporations
Of Liverpool opposed the bills in par
lament, and nearly a million and a
half dollars were expended by these
two cities In the contest. The meas
ure had been twice carried by Man
chester in the committees. Mr.. Eads'
opinions were sought and given, and
The Manchester ship canal bill was
unanimously rejected. The ruin of
the estuary by the proposed canal
works, if built in it, was made SO
plain even to the Manchester people
BY "the engineer imported from the
wilds of the Mississippi" as he was