The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-10-08
HE WATERWAY HE WANTS.
est. Louis Post-Dispatch.)

(St. Louis POSt-D1SpatcnJ
James A. Seldom, an engineer at the
head of his profession, says he has
solved the problem of running seagoing
vessels through the Mississippi valley.
Mr.. Seldom has been a visitor in st.
Louis the past week. His home is in
Chicago. He is here on vacation.
Mr.. Seldom would kill two birds with
one stone. High waters ruin channels-
If the Mississippi river did not go upon
rampages il would be an easy matter
for the river engineers to establish and
maintain a deep waterway.
There is always water enough TO
1 float ships of the greatest draught, but
! it covers too much riverbed, and is
| consequently very shallow. So the Sed-
: don plan is TO stop the flood. By TAX
/ ing the food out of the valley the river
| will be permitted to pursue it's course
/ without bursting it's banks and going
upon a raid from which it returns with
| its channel gone and much work for
/ the government engineers, II there is
! to be any navigation later in the year
/ when the river shall be low.
| A few years of even a fiOOdleSS flow
will cause the river to establish by
erosion a channel which sea-gOing YES
/ sells can navigate and which will al
| most take care of itself.
This is the Seldom plan in nutshell.
! Mr.. Seddon's scheme has recently
| been unfolded before the Illinois
| River Valley association and the West
! ern Society of Engineers It is a rad
/ zeal departure from all former plans
| of river work. and is remarkable for
! the reason that it contemplates aban-
! dOnment of a work which has cost the
! engineering corps of the United States
war department a quarter of a century
| of planning and working and has en-
1 tailed to the United States treasury an
! expenditure of half a hundred millions
/ of dollars. Mr.. Seldom wants to begin
| all over again. He has no word of
| criticism for any of the men who have
planned or have done or are doing
any of the river work along old lines.
| He says it was not to be expected that
| we should have solved these problems
| without expenditure of much money
and time in experiment.
The author of this plan is thus intro
/ duced by the legislative committee of
! the Illinois River Valley association:
| James a. Seldom, assistant to the
! board of officers to which the question
of a waterway in the Illinois river was
referred by the last congress, has for
| eighteen years been exclusively en-
gagged in mathematical analysis of the
data of the Mississippi river and it's
| tributaries. He is the author of a num-
Der of official reports and monographs
| upon these matters, and more recently
in the transactions of the American
Society of Civil Engineers, a complete
| system of river hydraulics planned for
| ial problems met in the study of al
| luvial rivers. Altogether his state
ments in regard to the intricate rela-
lions of discharge and stage in these
rivers are generally taken by the well
informed in his profession as final.
The following, Mr.. Seldom. when
asked about his project, told report
er: The lower Mississippi river, which
ed with for twenty years by the gov
eminent at a cost of almost $50. 600 900,
and neither the flood nor the channel
have been mastered. 1 offer what I
believe to be a solution to both prob
lens I do not do this in criticism of
! the men who have planned the work
done on the river. Nothing is further
from my mind. I have simply what
believe 10 be better plan born out
of our many years of experimental
work. 1 plan to stop the flood and
give the river an opportunity to pursue
and deepen a beaten channel. / would
bind it's wanderings, the annual bank
| reakings, that take the river out of
its bed and fill its channel with every
sort of alluvium the water carries
To accomplish this l would divert
| the flood from the river bed. It is
neither a difficult nor impossible thing
TO do. A food in the lower valley new
er comes without warning. 1t can be
| fOreseen even weeks before it arrives.
and there are at least many days in
| which to prepare for it. Floods in the
! lower river come from some or all of
the rivers in the upper valley and
there is but one big flood in a year.
Ny plan is to prepare for it Z would
turn it into the St Francis basin in
stead of permitting it TO so off down
the Mississippi to break over levees,
running crops. flooding homes and de-
! Stroying the channel Of the river.
The St. Francis basin reaches from
| Cairo down 20 Helena. It is on the
| west side of the river and is about 200
| miles long, and from forty-five to
! sixty-fve miles in width. 1t is a
/ packet in the valley, singularly adapt
ed TO the use I would make of 1t.
| At the river bank it is high and
/ from that point it falls away until it
| recedes to the low water level of the
| river On the west side it is bounded
| by high hills. At its upper end it is