The Olneyville times. (Olneyville [Providence, R.I.]) 1887-1917, 1907-11-22
"FATHER OF WATERS"
Difficulties in the Way OF II Foot
Mississippi Channel.

The journey OF President Roosevelt
down the Mississippi River and his ad-
dress before the Deep Waterways Con-
vention at Memphis have attracted
the attention of the whole nation TO
the project for a deep waterway be-
tween the Great Lakes and the Gulf.
Mr.. l.. r. Cooley, who has been "a
mong engineers the most prominent
advocates of this waterway, divides
il into three sections. as follows:
The Illinois-Chicago to st. Louis
with length of S67 miles and fall
OF 1876 feet.
The middle Mississippi-St. Louis
to Cairo-1S5 miles long, with a fall
of 10S feet
The lower Mississippi-Cairo To
Red Rock-7G4 miles long, with fall
of 275 feet
The first section, the Improvement
of the Illinois River, offers no particu-
lar difficulties. 1t is merely a matter
of creating slack-water navigation by
system of locks and dams; and as
rock foundations are available for
these the work can be carried out,
without serious difficulty. We be-
lieve the preliminary estimates OF the
Government engineers indicate total
cost of some $4,000 900 for a four
teen-fOot waterway from the lower end
Of the Chicago drainage canal, near
Joliet, TO st. Louis.
But when the problem of deep wa
terway down the Mississippi is pre-
sented, no such easy solution is pos
sible. No engineer who looks on the
Father of Waters" in it's flood stage
could dream of combining that turbulent
flood by any dams ever erected by
man. The Mississippi below st. Louis
is like a huge rainwater spout, carry
ing vast Volumes of flood water when
the rainfall is heavy, but with a flow
dwindling to very small proportions
in the dry weather Of summer and fall.
Any forces that man can set at work
are puny compared with the size OF
this great river; and to make matters
still more difficult, the river flows
through an alluvial plain, with no bot
tom anywhere TO give foundation on
which possible works for river con-
troll might be founded.
For ten years past the Mississippi
River Commission has maintained
minimum depth of s 12 feet in the low
water channel from st. Louis to the
Gulf by hydraulic dredging on the bars
between the pools At its lOw-water
stage, of course, the river is success
sion of pools of good depth, connected
by stretches of comparatively rapid
and shallow water BY deepening these
shallow rapids with hydraulic dredges
! during the low-water months, lasting
usually from September to January.
it is possible to afford about 1-2 to
| 9 feet in depth This work is, OF
course. merely temporary. and has to
be done over and over again, every
! season, and in fact has TO be continu-
| ed during the whole of the low-water
| period
As can be readily understood, this
plan of river Improvement is of limited
scope. Increasing the amount of dredg-
ing cannot greatly increase the depth
Of water: for as the rapid connecting
! two pools is deepened, the water in
the upper pool is lowered.
! 1t has been suggested that the low
water depth could be increased by
turning more water into the Mississip-
ri in Minnesota. The difficulty with
this is the great size Of the Missssip-
pts channel and it's rapid fall, partic-
ularly in the section from st. Louis
| to Cairo. 1t takes an enormous vol
ume of water TO have much effect in
increasing the navigable depth. Furth-
er. a heavy draft is already being
made on Lake Michigan, through the
! Chicago drainage canal, and to con-
siderable extent the lakes in Mime
sofa are actually in use for river reg
ulation. How to get an additional five
feet OF depht for lowwater navigation
below st. Louis is therefore an unsolv-
ed problem.
Proposals have been made to con-
struct an artificial waterway along
side the Mississippi following the nat
ural bayous so far as possible. Such
n waterway. however. would have all
feet of depth for lowwater navigation
in the way of restricted speed; and
il is more than doubtful whether 1t
would be feasible TO construct and
maintain IT, even with unlimited out
Law. i'm the alluvial soil of the lower
Mississippi Valley.-From the Engin
eering News.
ep,uooIino RibIes