The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-07-26
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
GREAT CHANGES CAUSED BY THE
NEV DRAINAGE SYSTEM.
For Two Centuries the City stood ON
Water.S8aked Soil Now II Can
Have Skyscrapers and Cellars The
Water Squeezed out OF tho sponge.

water squeezed Out or tho sponge
NEW ORLEANS. July 2S.-The completion
OF the new drainage system OF New Orleans
upon which the city has just expended
$1,000 600, has had effects on the atmos
phere, climate and soil altogether unex
pected; and the engineers are greatly
surprised at the remarkable changes tina
have occurred and are likely to occur,
All southern Louisiana, that is all thC
alluvial and coast region, is, or rathel
was a gigantic sponge. The drainage
work at New Orleans has finally squeezed
the water out of that sponge, so far as the
city is concerned, and the inhabitants
are Just beginning to realize what 1t is tC
live on hard solid and dry land.
This improvement has changed not only
the style Of buildings here, but even the
mode of living and the character of diseases
that prevail. New Orleans is 40 different
a city from! what it was that it's people
noting the disappearance Of some of lite
most pronounced features. feel as if they
had suddenly been transported to a new
and unknow land.
An these changes have come about
through drainage. The work Of sewering
the city was begun only few days ago,
and no one can say what so radical an
innovation will produce. The people are
prepared for anything
When the question OF spending from
$f8OOOOOO to $lsOOO,0O0 TO drain and sewer
New Orleans first came up the proposal
met with strong opposition from the
extreme conservative element which does
not want any Yankee fashions,
I'VE have got along very comfortably
without sewerage and drainage for two
centuries, and have been very oontented,'
said they. '"Why make change the effects
Of which may be Injurious to us?'
At a critical moment. In the drainage
campaign young attorney, under the
pseudonym of Jack Lafaience." wrote,
in the Creole dialect, a series of articles
against drainage or any new-fangled no.
tions so full Of humor and sarcasm that they
carried the day He pointed out, for in
stance. that nearly every householder in
New Orleans was safe against hunger, as his
his own back yard provided crawtish in
abundance, and he was always certain of
bisque and boiled crawfish whether he
was working or not,
He declared that the flooded cutters and
canals of New Orleans teemed with fish
so that good rod and line assured any
industrious man of a fine fish dinner, with
os't going rlore than few hundred feet
from his home Why. he argued, destroy
thet:5,.nd other advantages which rendered
New Orleans people independent Of work
and assured an abundant food supply on
the premises fos what at best was of more
than doubtful beneflt2
The friends Of the crawfish were defeated
and New Orleans was drained. Experience
has proved that the crawfish eaters were
not far wrong in predicting that radical
changes would occur as result Of draining
the city.
The character of the soil was we'll under
stood. When the work began an artesian
well, sunk on Canal street in ante be llum
times to depth of 1900 feet, had not
struck the bottom of the ocean that formerly
covered the city's site; or, rather, it had
struck the bottoms of several hundred
oceans.
1t was the same succession all the way
down--several yards of clay. white, blue or
bed; then more clay, shells and sand and
an older ocean bed. During countless
the ocean had made innumerable
new beds for itself with the mud and clay
brought down by the Mississippi The
river had not completed the work when
the arrival of Iberville and Bienville in
1899 established the colony OF Louisiana,
but had left the earth in about the condi-
ton of chaos.
The city of New Orleans was built on the
top of great sponge. Back of ii stretched
q great cypress swamp, part of it trem-
bling pfdirio-pratrie trembidnte, as they
call it in Louisiana. There the soil, COM
posed Of light earth and decayed vegetable
mould. floated on the surface of the waters.
In the city proper, for lack of drainage,
the soil was supersaturated and riddled
with the holes of billions of crawfish,
minks, eels and other aquatic animals
If you dug a few inches you struck water.
At two feet water stood in ordinary sea-
sons that being regarded as the water
level.
Burials in the ground became impossible,
for an ordinary grave soon filed with water.
and IA dredging machine instead of
grave digger was needed. Dust to dust"
sounded absurd, and the coffin was as
likely as not to float on the top of the water,
he grave having all the appearance of a
we'll
As result of this condition of affairs
Durals were made above ground, and the
New Orleans cemeteries consist of large
vaults and ovens in which the dead are
deposited Only Jews, who are required
oy their religion, and paupers were buried
u the ground. The graves of the latter
in the Potter's Field are only two or three
'setcls ep
The Jewish and .other cemeteries are
mainly located on Metari Ridge, regarded
rs n very high spot because Ii rises four
eet above the surrounding land Here
grave could, OF old, be dug as deep as six
eet without encountering water, but, Of
course, only in very dry weather. In the
ordinary rainy winter OF New Orleans
water, was struck over on the ridge at q
lepth Of two feet
The representation of the soil COM
,eLled the erection Of very light buildings.
The old builders declared that the soil
would not stand heavy stone or brick |
structure or one more than two stories |
Ugh
They recalled he fact that the Spaniards |
,uit THE ri At Belize, At the mouth OF the |
liver, too solidlv, and as a consequence it |