Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-12-20


Which is nearly s75. 900 per mile of chan
mel.
Yearly maintenance, 81, $40 per mile of
channel.
1t is probable that device enabling the
engineer to control the river with such great
facility would render bank protection or
reVettment unnecessary.
How to Prevent Caving.
A river of uniform velocity does not cut
its banks; cutting and caving are due to
variations in the velocity of the current.
Water has saturation point for any given
depth and speed with respect to sediment.
The proper method to put an end TO caving
is to correct the channel above the point at
which the cutting occurs as has been fire.
quently demonstrated. When a bank has
stood for years and suddenly begins to cave
| it is conclusive proof of one of two things:
Either that the channel has been deepened
below the place at which the caYing occurs,
or that it is shoaled at some point above. In
either case the proper remedy for the caving
is to deepen the channel above the threat
ened point, and thus restore that uniform
velocity upon which depends the sta
bilIty of the river bed. When the
river is established in a permanent and
suitable bed and under the continuous and
competent control of the United States Army
engineers shoaling or deterioration at any
point will be speedily discovered; the cais-
son-jetties will be trained upon the obstruc-
tion and it will be washed away. Then the
velocity will be uniform and the banks will
be permanent, be they clay or sand.
The process of permanent river improve
ment will be slow; for the evil of centuries
must be undone. The river at present flows
in bed which it has built for itself and
which in its shallower portions is so high as
to render good drainage impossible in the
adjacent country. The health of the
dwellers therein and that successful prose-
cution of agriculture and other avocations
bv them, upon which the prosperity of the
country depends, demand that the river be
lowered sufficiently to drain the country
and save it from overflow.
Health Also Factor.
Our humanity, a liberal foresight, the
immediate necessities of trade, and the de-
maDd, hourly swelling, for more land to
provide homes for the people, alike demand
this measure. BY il we will bring health to
thousands now blighted by disease; safety
and comfortable enjoyment to thousands
who now tremble in fear, doomed to lose
their all; we will bring the greater values,
the more scientific cultivation, the increased
productiveness which will spring up where
nope replaces terror. We will augment an
hundred fold the present commerce and open
thousand avenues of trade now unthought
Of We will drain and bring into use vast
areas now swamps and lagoons-treasure-
houses, boards of wealth laid up by nature
in teeming soil. These reclaimed acres
will make hundreds of thousands of home
steads, and be the loved homes of millions
of happy people.
The first essential is to establish and main
tain the river in a permanent and well-regu-
lated channel, thus securing immunity from
destructive floods and material shifting of
the river bed, and insuring good drainage to
the adjacent country. Until that is done it
would be folly to expend great sums OF
money to build permanent works designed
to aid navigation. Before such works could
be completed they might be far distant from
the channel and worthless, or undermined
and wrecked. So long as the river is sub
Ject to conditions which permit it to shift its
channel half mile or more In a single sea-
son, so long permanent auxiliary works are
out of the question, and there can be none
of that large commerce which makes peo-
pie great; the river commerce can be limited
and local, nothing more.
Floods Must be Impounded.
The improvement of the river above Cairo,
and of the tributaries must be coincident
with the establishment OF a suitable channel
for the lower river. To make that possible
in iull measure of success, the food waters
must be impounded in their sources, the
smaller tributaries. Such measure would
of itself be most desirable aid to commerce
! and manufactures; would create a water
route parallel with and overlapping the