The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1896-07-01
LEVEE MENDING.
stopping Urevasses in the Miss.ss-
ippi's Artificial Banks.
1t is a Thrilling Moment When
a Leak is Discovered.

against the earth works, the men em-
ployed to watch the levees to stop
leaks, to strengthen weak sections and
to do all in their power to prevent
crevasse from forming, are on duty
night and day. Each gang is in
charge of "high-water foreman"
veteran who has earned his spurs in
many hard fight with the father of
waters.
He il there to hold that levee
against all comers, flood, hurricane,
waves, muskrats, and seepage. The
alarm is given that at certain place
the levce is in danger. The foreman
with his force of men hurries to the
place. His experienced eye locates
the point of greatest danger at once,
and like good general he lays out his
plan of campaign. Small time is
given to him for this, for when the
water once finds leak or makes
DIthh tut lcNco gus Oub III Btoub
Jumps, and overy minute counts.
Sometimes, when the waves have
made cut in the front slope OF the
embankment, planks are driven down
into the levee, anchored at the bottom
with cleats and reinforced by other
planks nailed lap streak. and then
earth is filed in behind the wooden
wall.
Brush, cotton stalks, bagasse-the
refuse of the sugar mill-clay and
small trees are sometimes piled behind
the timber palisade, but the high-water
foreman's favorite weapons in fighting
floods and storms are sacks filled with
earth or clay. These sacks are kept
on hand for just such emergencies.
They are generally new and of two
kinds, one larger than the other.
The foreman divides his men into
squads of three; one to hold the sack
and the other two to fill it. When the
sack is filled it is sewed up and laid in
position before the caving, crumbling
part of tho dyke. The men who
place the filled sacks in position are
experts at that work and hardy enough
to stand the exposure, for they work
in cold water up to their waists.
The work is so severe that they are
relieved ut short intervals. The sacks
are placed according to the situation /;
sometimes with the butts toward the
river and sometimes they are laid
parallel to the stream.
The break in tho levce may bo SO
wide and the current OF tho flood
rushing through the gap may be so
swift that the crevasse cannot be
closed. Then the foreman bends all
his energies to prevent the crevasse
from becoming wider.
To do this he must protect the ends
| of the levee from the current, and he
strings loaded sacks on ropes or wires
and, beginning at the bottom OF the
slope lays them evenly and solidly
over the face of the break to the
waters edge.
When this method will not keep the
water from undermining the levee
and thus widening the gap. piles are
| driven out from each end of the break
aud sacks, brush aud other material
are thrown in between the row of
piles and the embankment. This
makes breakwater which turns the
current AWAY from tho embankment
and generally stops the underwriting.
Small crevasses can be closed by
throwing sacks into the gap until a
temporary levee of earth-tilled sacks
is made Then the men hastily fill in
back of the sacks with clay and earth,
brush and other material until the cre-
vase is closed.
Another method of closing gaps is
to drive small piles of scantling from
each end and throw sacks in front OF
the piles. This is done by driving 6
pile in close to the enbankment. A
plank then is laid on this pile, will
one end on the levee and the other
end overhanging.
A workman standing on the over
hanging end drives another pile will
his heavy maui, and this operation il
continued until there is q row of mp
right timbers across the crevasse. Th,
water rushes between the piles, bu
other workmen, carrying out fillet
sacks on the bridge thus formed,
throw them in front of the TIMBER
and thus gradually build up dan
which holds the flood in check unit