Arizona republican., 1900-10-02

believe to be better plan. born out of our many years of experimental work. plan to stop the flood and give the river an opportunity Ito pursue and deepen d better channel I would bind its wanderings, the annual bank break ings. that take the river out of it's bed and fill the channel with every sOlr of alluviam the water carries.
 To accomplish this I would divert the flood from the river bed. It ia neither a difficult or impossible thing to do. \ flood in the lower valley never comes without warning. It 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. My plan is 10 prepare for il. I would turn it into the St. Francis basin instead of permitting il to go off down the Missis- sippi to break over levees. running crops. flooding homes and ruining rhe channel of the river.
 The St. Francis basin reaches from Cairo down to Helena. It is on the west side of the river and is about POO miles long and from forty-five to six ty-fiye miles wide. It is a pocket in the valley, singularIy adapted to -he use I would make of it.
 At the river bank it is high. and from that point M 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 shut off from the river by a nigh ridge. I would cut in this a runway through which the Mississippi could be turned at will.
 Back of this ridge l would build sev- .ral strong dams. which would hold the water in pockets as it came in. These dams would rest one behind the other and the water would run over into the second pocket as il overflowed the first. and so on. The complete set of pockets would hold floods three times as large as any that have ever devastated the valley.
 Let us imasi-e that we have adapted the swamp lands of the St. Francis ba- sin to this use. We see a flood coming. The river guages hundreds of miles above Us on several tributaries furnish the proof. The water at Cairo is Il feet above low water mark. It is as much as We ought to admit 10 the bed of the
 
 valve in the ridge at the head of the St. Francis basin. All the water above forFy-une feet will take the new route
 The flood comes. It does not go down the Mississippi valley at all. but is di- verged to the St. Francis basin. The first pocket fills with water. and the second and third. By this time the ba- sin has swallowed up the flood. We L Il the season of lower waters comes. Then We open the food gates of the pockets and permit the waiter to run from the lower pocket into the Mississippi. tu' make it's way to the gulf when it can do no harm.
 And about the deep waterway! once rid of the flood in rhe lower valley We can speedily have the Geep channel as far as Nicksburg, at least. The river | itself. left to traverse d beaten path. will cut oul- such channel for itself. At any rate the hydraulic dredges. which have been rev oiutionizing river dredging. will establish channel that the river can always maintain. Between Helena and Cairo l would make still another use of the $ Fran cis basin. 1 would pu locks in the
 
 l would keep in there d series of deep lakes, which the deep draft vessels which could not navigate the river might use
 There would be 200 miles of these lakes. and l estimate their cost at 32 million dollars for the dams and anoth- er 12 million dollars for the locks. This would not be more than the govern ment has expended on the loweN river . in the last twem.y years. and it would { solve the problem of deep water and protection from floods foy all time Summing up. We estimate the aggre- gate cost of this 1.G00 mite and 2o-foOt waterway at from 15O million dollars to 200 million dollars. IL is an enor- nous undertaking. but We are seeking enormous results. There is a feeling all up and down the valley that this waterway ts to come. The engineers are all of this mind. and I find the peo- ple along the river of a similar opinion. Considering the developments ij would bring to She Mississippi valley il would he cheap at 2G0 million dollars. The commerce Of half the continent would pass through this waterway. Nothing can be more illustrative of what the vessels of the waterway might do than to say that the lake freighters are car | rying ton of coal from Duluth to Buff