The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1884-09-17
vAoARIEs OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
Fhe Shifting Beds, Changing Courses, I'm.
stable Banks and Dcyast atinn De-
luges Tint Cannot be Com
troiled.

60 The question of the day in Louisiana
rhd Mississippi is the Mississippi River;
aow to control its vagaries how to regu-
late its overflow. The problem involved in
.he regulation of this great river is very
involved and difficult one and the interests
at stake are of as great magnitude as is the
problem. In fact, the whole matter will
'Hll for the best craftsmanship and the high
sst engineering skill, and if l mistake not
will in its various ramifcations furnish one
Of the great lines of political clearage in our
lay. At first sight it might be supposed
hat the dyking or leveeing of a river SO as
% protect its banks was a simple question
>f labor and money, but the Lower Missis-
ippi is very extraordinary river. Ordi-
larily speaking, it may be said TO DO from
one-half to two miles wide, and fifty TO one
hundred feet deep; but people, in speaking
ot these dimensions, forget that they only
mean that portion of the great stream which
n liquid enough to be called by courtesy
water, and that much larger part, which
is solid enough to be called land also by
courtesy, must be also taken into considers.
ton.
This latter division of the stream is
often twenty to forty miles wide and of un-
known depth, and has slow motion of its
own, so that banks or dykes built in il have.
constant tendency to move away or to lose
their foundations. To still futher compli
cate matters, the liquid part of the river has
persistent habit of changing its location
from side to side, and in doing 80 playing
very destructive pranks with mans property
dnd interests. For instance, at yiclSsburg
the channel at some distant date ran through
what is now Lake Providence, several miles
to the westward of the Vicksburg bluff.
Growing tired of this location, it gradually
worked its way eastward until it washed the
base of the hills ON which Yicksburg is
built and this course seemed to satisfy it
for good many years. Since the war the
perplexing stream has suddenly determined
to move west, and unless its wanderings
can be checked, a very few years will see
vicksburg an inland town. This sort OF
thing is going on at q great many places
and together with the terrible spring floodi
which convert the bottom lands into M
angry sea sometimes forty miles wide make
the enjoyment of life and property at times
very problematical And yet such is the
richness of these bottom lands that neithes
our States nor the country at large can of
ford to leave them uncultivated any more
than the common interest can afford to leave
tho river channel unimproyed or allow Its
mouths to be silted up.
What is to be the ultimate solution Of
these difficulties of course cannot tell, and
opinions differ widely. Some people advo-
cate the continued construction and main
tenance of dykes or levees, while others 90
so far as to say that 1t would have been
better for the bottom land planters If no
levees had even been constructed and they
had been forced to rely on tho occasional
crops which could be raised in the seasons
when tn. water ran off early, and that O
man who could rely on making one crop
out of three on ground enriched by the in
undation would do well enough. The en-
gineers, too, are rather puzzled by the curl
GUS freaks of the river. They cannot get
foundation ut any practicable depth, ant
their palliatives in the shape of mattresses
fascines, etc., intended to hold the banks
only answer until tho river has its attentio,
called to them, when away they go md ar
no more seen. SO you see there is nothin
to be done but to try experiments, and kee
on trying-that is, so far as the conservanc
, matter goes. But there is another troub
that of fioods-more susceptible of rem
r dy, and to which attention should |
, drawn; for as the country is settled Il
D damage and suffering caused by these il
7 ilictions is greatly increased, while qal'
pdSsu with this increase in possibilities
destruction comes an increase in the rapid
ty and violence of the floods themselves
caused as firmly believe, by the incoi
siderate way in which the timber CROWN
on the afiiuents of the upper river has bee
destroyed. Now, this trouble which aflliei
not only the lower river bat the upper au
the Ohio as we'll, can be dealt WITH and
is for the general government to take prope
measures in that direction.