Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-12-18

above the material taken up would be
dropped the moment the current was re-
duced to the normal mud-bearing power of
the river. The Mississippi is generally
charged with as much mud as 1t can trans
port; hence, if we charge 1t with more, we
must continue to maintain the velocity it re-
guired when it picked up its additional load.
He might, it is true, begin the work at the
lower end and move his travelling dams up
as occasion demanded. Be this as 1t may,
without doubt the writer contemplates re-
quirements far, very far, in excess OF those
which the boldest engineers have yet asked
the Father of Waters to perform for the
benefit of commerce ana the reclamation
of lands subject to overflow. As for drain
ing the lagoens, the plodders are only too
glad too have them to help hold the waters
of overflow. Captain Cowdon's plan for re-
lieving the foods of the lower Mississippi
by emptyiug Red river through the Cal
casien into the gulf would seem to offer
greater inducements than that proposed, but
even Cowdon finds few supporters to-day.
Returning to the Ohio, where we In Pitts
burg are most concerned, he proposes by
conining the current to cause it also to wear
out a deeper course, etc. In some places
this project is practicable on the ONO, but
where for several consecutive miles, as at
flows over solid rock and in other places
over stretches Of rough rocks and great
boulders pushed up by ancient Ice gorges,
as at Beaver shoals, for instance, the plan
would not work. Such places might be i'm
proved by blasting or powerful dredges (and
many a chain has been broken on dredges In
doing this work in places on the Ohio).
As for holding flood waters in the present
prisons OF tho Ohio by means OF any kind of
dams, that seems to be impracticable. l
constructed diagrams of the Ohio after the
great flood of 1884, employing daily records
of many places on the river for two weeks
before and two weeks following the flood,
and the diagrams clearly showed that the
of its banks, before the rains came which
produced the final catastrophe. In that
case the dams would have proved only an
additional detriment to the river.
FACT AND THEORY.
Charles Ellet, when he proposed to re-
strain the floods in the Ohio, was COM
pIetely upset when his theories were ap-
piled to the facts. Well do recollect that
in one place were he proposed dam 100
feet high across the Allegheny Valley, near
Olean, N. Y, where the facts were that
even a dam 81 feet high would have caused
the waters to overflow into Lake Ontario.
That, of course, would have been good
thing. The floods nowadays come at any
time. The greatest known in the Mononga-
hela Valley came in July, 1888, followed by
another in August.
Ilreferred to Eads' interest In the mud de-
posits Of the Mississippi. It was my good
fortune two years before Eads began to work
up his subject, to report upon the Missouri
river. 1 visited the region where the mud
came from, made number of interesting
calculations as to its quantity-happening
to agree tolerably well with the figures of
mud found in the Mississippi, and very
modestly proposed that by protecting the
banks of the Missouri from caving in, the
entire evil caused by its mud on the rivers
below to the gulf would be cured. And I
maintain yet that the Mississippi channels
can be deepened by clearing its largest mud
contributor of its deposit. For If the stream
is loaded with mud from above, it can pick
up no additional load on its way, unless its
velocity be increased. This is the Eads doc
trine exactly and commend it to the writer
for his consideration. The Mississippi will
certainly deepen its bed if we can keep out
the Missouri mud. Why not. then, 60 to
the source of the disease and treat it?
KEYSTONE.
PITTsBURG, December II.