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REMAKING-THE
•MISSISSIPPI-

JOHN • LATHROP-MATHEWS

LIBRARY

OP' THK

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

Class

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

REMAKING
THE MISSISSIPPI

JOHN LATHEOP MATHEWS

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

Ktoer#i&e $ws$ Cambridge
1909

GENEHAi

Published May IQOQ

CONTENTS

I. THE MISSISSIPPI SYSTEM 1

II. THE HYDROLOGY OF THE SYSTEM ... 19

III. CONTROLLING THE MAJOR BED .... 34

IV. LEVEE BUILDING AND MAINTENANCE . . 60
V. THE MINOR BED : REGULARIZATION ... 79

VI. THE RIVER MOUTH 102

VII. THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI 151

VIII. THE MISSOURI 169

IX. THE OHIO, AND CANALIZATION .... 182

X. LAKES-TO-THE-GULF 208

XI. THE TRIBUTARIES 226

XII. THE UTILIZATION OF THE CHANNELS . . 251

INDEX , 263

188381

ILLUSTRATIONS

Coal-towing on the Ohio (page 258) . . Frontispiece

Behind a levee 54

Levee protection in flood-time 54

An island chute, open ....... 84

A closed chute . . . 84

Weaving a fascine revetment mattress .... 88
An early type of woven brash revetment . . . . 88

A hurdle dike, Missouri River 94

An abatis dike at low water, Missouri River . . .96
An abatis dike at high water, Missouri River . . .96
Pegging and finishing a mat ...... 136

Making a foundation mattress ...... 136

The Eads jetties, South Pass 144

The broad river near Memphis 144

The Mississippi at Bemidji 152

Pokegama dam. The regulating gate of the Mississippi reser-
voirs, Upper Mississippi 152

Bird's-eye view of lock and dam No. 2, Mississippi River 160
Steamer entering lock at Keokuk, Upper Mississippi . . 160

A groin to prevent underscour 170

Sinking a groin, Missouri River 170

A bankhead revetment, Missouri River .... 174

ILLUSTRATIONS

Beat-trap gate at Lockport ....... 192

Discharge of the Chicago Sanitary Canal over the Beartrap

Gate 192

Cbanoine wickets, Ohio River, dam No. 13, showing the

supporting mechanism and sill while in coffer . . . 198
Dam and lock on the Monogahela . . . . . 198 '
The lock at Henry, Illinois River ... . .222

Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal 222

The Yazoo Cut. Artificial channel for the Yazoo into Centen-
nial Lake 238

Vicksburg Canal. Artificial mouth of the Yazoo from Cen-
tennial Lake to the Mississippi • 238

KEMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

CHAPTER I
THE MISSISSIPPI SYSTEM

THE map of North America presents no
more striking feature than the system of
-waterways which flow into or are allied with the
Mississippi River. By the " allied " rivers I mean
to include, not only those which parallel more or
less definitely the lower reaches of the big stream,
and are connected with it by inland courses, but
also those more distinct waters which collect in
the reservoir of the Lakes and flow eastward
through the St. Lawrence, and those which drain
down from the wheat-growing slopes of the Ca-
nadian Rockies to make the Saskatchewan, the
Athabasca, and even the MacKenzie. For all
these streams have their main courses in a great
continental trough or depression, extending from
the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic, between the
two continental ranges, the Rockies on the west,

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

the Appalachians on the east; and though they
are to-day separate systems, they have recorded
on their banks the history of a day when they all
flowed together to the southward, and the pro-
phecy of another day when they will all be linked
into a unified, commercial system of carriers. The
land which they drain is the fertile heart of the
continent, constituting one of the most amazing
regions in the world in the extent to which it
possesses those qualities which make for habit-
ability in the highest degree of comfort by white
men and women. It includes the greatest wealth
of the United States and of Canada : in the south
the sugar and rice of the Gulf states, and adjacent
to them some of the greatest cotton-fields in the
world ; north of them, again, the home of Amer-
ican corn ; and still north of this a wheat-grow-
ing region which we shall never see equaled, —
until, perhaps, Siberia comes into its own, —
extending beyond the Arctic Circle and almost
to the shore of the Polar Sea.

It is by no strained figure of speech that I
have called this the heart of the continent, for
it is the source and centre of our circulation, the

THE MISSISSIPPI SYSTEM

fount whence springs our life-blood, the never-
ceasing engine, stagnation of which would mean
death for the whole organism. It is therefore by
an especially bountiful provision of nature that
in and from this heart lead the most wonderful
arteries for a national life which are provided for
any people. From the MacKenzie, flowing to a
frozen sea, through the Athabasca and the Sas-
katchewan, the Winnipeg and the Bed River of
the North and the Minnesota, through Eainy
Lake and Pigeon River, the wheat-fields reach
out not only to the cold shores of the Arctic, and
of Hudson's Bay, but to the warm waters of the
Lakes and the Mississippi. And these, in turn,
from a union at the Chicago Divide, gathering
together waters from Pennsylvania, New York,
and the Carolinas on the east, from Montana and
Wyoming on the west, from Texas and Okla-
homa, and from Alabama and Tennessee, flow
with them southward to the Gulf of Mexico or,
from the other side of the Divide, make their
way eastward through the St. Lawrence to the
Atlantic. A parallel to that which the nations
of Europe have striven a century to construct, a

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

continental system of internal waterways, America
has here ready at hand, and so situated that on
its banks must be produced and consumed the
greater part of all that the nation produces from
fields or factories or buys from other peoples.

When the settlement of this centre began,
these rivers formed the natural channels by which
people flocked in and by which their cargoes
were handled. Later these people gave over the
use of their steamboats to develop the faster and
more certain railway. To-day these railways are
congested and outgrown, and for bulk freights,
at least, we are being driven back to the water-
ways. And when the centre is entirely populated,
no thousands of miles of railway that can be built
there, whether operated by steam or by electricity,
by coal or by sunlight, will be capable of serving
its trade. In that day these rivers will come into
their own, and will prove as capable of absorbing
the flood of commerce as of carrying off the tor-
rents of rain and melting snow.

It is, however, with the Mississippi system
proper, and only to a lesser extent with its allies,
that we are here concerned ; for it is the Missis-

THE MISSISSIPPI SYSTEM

sippi which lies to-day almost unused in the pre-
sence of the most rapidly developing and the most
congested traffic of the continent. We are to
examine here to what extent and by what means
our engineers have learned how to make of these
streams safe and reliable carriers, how far they
have exercised that control, what it has cost, and
what lies ahead of us in the ultimate conserva-
tion of this water resource.

We came to the use of these rivers in a period
before the steam-engine was more than a useless
toy, and before even John Fitch's boat had had
its initial trip. We have forced them to serve us
in advance of the developing of the science of
river control by inventing and working out types
of boats to use them in their primitive state. As
our complex trade and civilization have developed
until these types of boats no longer serve them,
we have found ourselves unable to bring the
rivers to a stage in which new types of boats
satisfactory to commerce can operate econom-
ically. And this is for several reasons. While the
river and the boats have been advancing we have
been working out a new type of government and

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

conquering a new continent, and during much
of that time we have been fighting and recover-
ing from a great war. The duty or the ability
of the nation to enter into such large works of
public improvement has not been too clearly
seen, and even in the year 1908, in which this is
written, it is not yet possible to secure Congres-
sional consent to an adjustment and distribution
of the cost and the profit accruing from the
development of the streams, or even to the de-
velopment in its entirety of any single river.
Unwilling, or unable through constitutional lim-
itation, to take up the larger projects, or — and
this has been very effective — too busy with our
new lands and new businesses to give our atten-
tion to these things, we have been contented with
piecemeal work, patching here and there, in an
attempt to carry traffic from day to day. It is,
therefore, my purpose in this volume, without
attempting to account the blame for our serious
defects, to show exactly what we have done and
by what means we have done it, and to indicate
as clearly as I can the condition toward which we
are, or should be, aiming ; remembering that the

THE MISSISSIPPI SYSTEM

entire subject of river development has been
given a new direction in the past eight years by
our increased knowledge of the possibilities of
the electric transmission of power.

The Mississippi system consists of a veining
of rivers spreading fan-wise, from a base on the
shore of the Gulf of Mexico, northward, east-
ward, and westward to the most remote parts of
the centre which lie within the United States.
Into these rivers drain 1,244,000 square miles of
land, two fifths of the territory of the Union ex-
clusive of Alaska. They offer channels suitable
for navigation from New York State to Montana,
from Minnesota to the Gulf. No other river sys-
tem in the world is so nicely situated with regard
to the strategy of trade. Nowhere else is there
another so populous and extensive region of ab
solutely free trade as lies within the tariff walls
of the United States; nor is there another set of
rivers which coincides so entirely with the final
demands of both internal and external trade.
The inevitable trend of all stable traffic move-
ments is in two principal directions, — inward
and outward between seaboard and interior, and

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

between northerly and southerly zones. The crops
and manufactures of the interior must go to the
seaboard and thence abroad to exchange for for-
eign goods, which return over the same routes;
and the temperate zone and the tropics must ever
exchange with one another those products in
which each has a climatic monopoly. So we see
the Mississippi reaching from the seaboard to the
farthest corners of the interior, a natural channel
to and from the coast; and at the same time with
its main trunk exactly in the direction of inter-
zone communication.

As for the purposes of traffic and of engineering
development, so for our study we may divide the
Mississippi into six principal streams or collec-
tions: the main river below St. Louis; the Ohio;
the Chicago-Illinois route to the Lakes; the Up-
per Mississippi; the Missouri; and the minor
tributaries. Of course, it is only by a free use of
the term that we can include such majestic and
important waters as the Tennessee, the Cumber-
land, the Arkansas, and the Red among the "minor
tributaries." These six divisions comprise, all told,
at least eighteen thousand miles of channel sus-

THE MISSISSIPPI SYSTEM

ceptible of development to a navigable stage, not
including the allied waters to which they are con-
nected. No accurate estimate of this amount has
yet been made, but it is certain that more than
sixteen thousand miles have actually been trav-
ersed by steamboats and have been taken in charge
by the federal engineers. Leaving out of con-
sideration for the time being those streams which
we have assembled as "minors," and considering
only the major channels which constitute what is
often called the "trunk line system" of the Mis-
sissippi, and upon the immediate development of
which the traffic of the centre is waiting, we may
represent them graphically and simply by the
diagram on page 10, which shows at the same
time their general trend and the manner of chan-
nel which it is proposed to develop in them.

Had an engineer designed a gigantic system
for carrying the products of the interior to the
seaboard, he could have shaped no better plan than
this for economy in construction and operation,
for simplicity and directness. At the head of the
Ohio we have Pittsburg, a region rather than a
city, one of the greatest tonnage-producing cen-

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

Bt.Paul ^Minneapolis

Fittabnrg

Memphis

Vicksburg

Kew Orleans

tres in the world. Here originate immense ship-
ments of pig and manufactured iron, steel in all
shapes, glassware, and manufactured articles of
many other kinds, which must be carried not only
to the seaboard, but to the distributing centres
at St. Louis and at the extremities of the other
branches of the waterway. Here are the shipping
points for the Pennsylvania and West Virginia
coal mines, whence millions of tons each year must
be carried down to New Orleans and the cities by

THE MISSISSIPPI SYSTEM

the way. Here, too, are great sugar refineries, in
which the syrups of Louisiana are transformed,
and factories and yards which require millions
of feet of southern lumber, and must eventually
import wood via New Orleans from Central Amer-
ica.

At the head of the Illinois route, where the rivers
and the lakes unite, stands Chicago, the greatest
railway centre in the world. Here, at the head of
Lake Michigan, are gathered all those raw ma-
terials, sand, iron ore, coal, wood, fibre, pulp,
which make possible the establishment of a large
manufacturing centre. Here are gathered the corn
and wheat of the West for forwarding or for
transmutation into manifold by-products. Hence
go countless tons of meat .products, of iron and
steel goods, of harvesters and reapers, of furni-
ture, of clothing, of cereal foods, all requiring to
be borne to the distant points of distribution and
to the seaboard gateway of the nation. Here, too,
are collected by great lake ships all the tribute
of the cities about the Lakes, to be exchanged for
southern goods or to be sent on down the rivers
to the Gulf, and so abroad, and here the inland

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

western cargoes transship for the farther reaches
of the St. Lawrence and the Erie route.

At the head of the Upper Mississippi, where
the great river plunges over fall after fall to gen-
erate eventually more than two hundred thou-
sand electric horse-power, we have established the
collecting and distributing centres of the North,
St. Paul and Minneapolis. Here is already pro-
duced more than half the wheat flour of America.
Hence go shiploads abroad, for which no better
route will ever open than that by water straight
down to New Orleans. Here the trade of the
Northwest and the new Canada centres. And
north of the two cities, along the Mississippi
itself, are extensive deposits of iron ore, of a
grade which will amply repay barging it down
this natural channel to be smelted by the cheap
and abundant coal and limestone of Illinois and
Missouri.

Farther west still, the Missouri, plunging down
over the Great Falls, with a force of five hundred
thousand horse-power, and finding its way across
the Bad Lands of North Dakota, where irrigation
from it is rapidly working a miracle, comes by

THE MISSISSIPPI SYSTEM

Sioux City, Omaha, and Kansas City, the great
depots in which the Northwest gathers in its yel-
low corn and its wheat, forwarding depots from
which now everything goes by rail, but from
which in time the Missouri will float them to the
sea. Here, too, ends the overland haul of eastern
import goods, and here they are broken up and dis-
tributed to all the hinterland. And at the junction
of these streams, at the head of the main trunk
line, stands St. Louis, a jobbing centre of the first
importance, entrance to all the rich Arkansas
and Missouri hinterland, a big manufacturing
city and the controlling gateway for an immense
east-and-west railway traffic.

These are the key points of interior commerce,
and it is just in so far as it creates sufficient
channels between them, safe, certain, and ample,
that the Mississippi establishes itself as the bur-
den-bearer of America.

In their natural condition these rivers are of
course incapable of this feat. Sufficient for the
needs of pioneers, their channels are obstructed
by shifting bars and altered by moving banks;
they are from time to time blocked by snags;

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

they are interrupted by periods of low water and
by floods which obliterate landmarks. They suffer
in the course of years from the depletion of the
forests about their headwaters, and from the in-
vasion of lumbermen who fill their courses with
sunken logs. They require to be so altered that
there shall be at all times a sufficient depth of
water for profitable navigation, at no time too
great a flood for safe traveling, and a channel ab-
solutely free from snags, rocks, or bars. To pro-
vide such channels has been the task of the Corps
of Engineers of the United States Army. Aided
by irregular and insufficient appropriations, work-
ing necessarily without any definite system having
been adopted, and handicapped at every turn by
those political obstacles which necessarily beset
government employees in our country, they have
toiled steadily forward on individual streams
until they have solved in detail all of the many
problems which are concerned in our task ; and,
while bringing fairly good channels to many parts
of streams, have shown the way to go at the whole
effectively. This "going at the whole" has in turn
been definitely entered upon, and we are in dis-

THE MISSISSIPPI SYSTEM

tant view of the day when the desired end will
be attained.

It is not my purpose to discuss here the manner
in which the mode of expending money on river
improvements has grown, or in detail the present
condition of this expenditure. Briefly, our earli-
est method was for Congress to direct the person
under whom each appropriation should be ex-
pended, who was usually a treasury officer, and
most commonly the nearest collector of revenue.
Later it was necessary to indicate the Secretary
of War in many cases, as he alone had under his
command engineers capable of making surveys of
rivers and harbors. Later still, as the River and
Harbor Bill became an established thing, and the
question of government policy on river improve-
ment was definitely decided, this grew into an es-
tablished procedure. At the close of the Civil War
it became one of the chief fields of activity of the
army engineers. Although no school of practical
instruction except the work itself has ever been
provided for them, they have as a body continued
to advance in their new science, and have been
organized into a regular staff, through the chan-

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

nels of which with military precision and red tape
go surveys, recommendations, appropriations, and
other reports from the captain-engineer in charge,
through the general-engineer at Washington to
the Secretary of War, the Rivers and Harbors
committees, and Congress itself.

In the early days of river improvement much
work was done by the several states ; and even to-
day work of the most valuable character is being
thus accomplished. Many other tasks, as the
damming and locking of certain coal-region rivers,
have been done under state charter by private
companies entitled to charge tolls. Thus Ohio
developed the Muskingum; Kentucky the Green,
Barren, and other streams ; Arkansas and Louis-
iana appropriated money for the Jefferson Bayou,
the Washita, the Black, and many other channels
which were in the early days their only roads.
All private charters are, however, now extinct,
and all navigable waters are toll-free.

Up to the end of 1907 the development of
navigation in the rivers of the country, under the
general name of " improvement," had been con-
sidered as a thing by itself without regard to what

THE MISSISSIPPI SYSTEM

other uses of water or of land may have required
different treatment.

At that time, however, there was appointed an
Inland Waterway Commission by President Koose-
velt, the creation of which marked the breaking
away from tradition and the establishment of a
new policy. Under this new policy, which is one
of the utmost conservation of all our national re-
sources, the waters are to be developed for all pur-
poses simultaneously. Keservoiring to prevent
floods, to develop and steady water powers and
to maintain navigation, will be done more exten-
sively. The planting of forests to reserve water
naturally will be more largely indulged in. Tree
planting to prevent soil wash will become a fea-
ture, and the use of the rivers for irrigation and
for power will be made to go far toward paying
for the improvement of the same streams for navi-
gation.

All told, the national government has expended
on the Mississippi and its branches between two
hundred and two hundred and fifty million dol-
lars. Much of this sum has been spent in learning.
Much of it has been wasted. Much of it remains,

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

however, in permanently improved channels, and
in public works ample for their task for a century.
As a result of the expenditure, there are now in
the principal branches of the trunk system the
following channels : in the lower Mississippi, from
the mouth to Red River (300 miles), ample water
for the largest ocean steamship ; from Red River
to Cairo, 9 feet at all stages and usually 10 feet,
in a channel 250 feet wide; from Cairo to St.
Louis, an uncertain channel nominally 8 feet, but
sometimes reduced to 5 feet; from there to La
Salle, 100 miles from Chicago, 6 feet in the Mis-
sissippi and 7 in the Illinois; in the Upper Missis-
sippi above the Illinois, 4J feet to St. Paul, with
usually 5 feet, and an incomplete 5-foot lock sys-
tem to Minneapolis; in the Missouri, an uncertain
and ill-kept channel practically abandoned by the
engineers and by traders, with usually 3 or 4 feet
at summer stages as far as Kansas City; and in
the Ohio, an uncertain river perhaps 20 inches to
3 feet at lowest water over the worst bars, with a
heavy commerce in flood time, and with its upper
reaches being slowly improved to 9 feet of depth
by a system of locks and collapsible dams.

CHAPTER II

THE HYDROLOGY OF THE SYSTEM

A PROPER understanding of the problems
and methods of the development of navi-
gability in a river and the control of its waters
and their channel, necessarily depends upon these
things, — a knowledge of the hydrology of the
stream and its tributaries, of the land on which
the rain supply falls, and of the bed in which it
finally locates itself. On all of these matters our
engineers have made long and detailed reports of
the several parts ; though, owing to the divided
nature of our public works among cabinet de-
partments, there is no official and complete
report upon either the hydrology or the char-
acter of the beds and the navigable length of
the streams. One finds river measurements in
the War Department, supplied from the reports
of Major Humphreys and Lieutenant Abbot,
which do not agree with those of the Census
Bureau, nor do either of these agree with the

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

figures of the Geologic Survey. Nor does the
latter always agree with itself. For accurate fig-
ures on stream length, it is often necessary to go
to a certain very complete report on our streams
prepared by M. Vetillart for the Public Works
Department of the French government. Thus we
find in the Census and in the Irrigation papers two
reports on the drainage area of the Missouri, one
of 527,000 square miles, the other of 492,000.
The navigable length of the river is given by the
Treasury Department as 3127 miles, the total
length of the same river by the Missouri River
Commission as 2503 miles, and the navigable
length as 2378 miles.

Such errors are not confined to the Missouri.
It is not my purpose, however, to comment on
them more than to point out some of the diffi-
culties which still stand in the way of a complete
and accurate account of these rivers. Estimates
of the average flow of the Ohio vary as much as
twenty-five per cent.

When the government figures on which we
must base our own decisions vary so widely, it is
difficult to present a hydrological table for which

THE HYDROLOGY OF THE SYSTEM

respect can be expected. Nevertheless, having
compared the figures prepared by Mr. Greenleaf
with those of the Geologic Survey and whatever
others could be obtained, I believe the following
table, which follows pretty closely the Census
estimate in most points, gives a view of the crea-
tion of these rivers that will not far mislead. At

RlVBB.

Upper Mississippi .
Missouri ....
Ohio .

ns.ooo1

527,0003
214 000s

347
19.6
43

27
12

.688
.178
740

2.56
1.14
5 61

.144
.047
163

25
25
35

1182
94*
158

550

600
1200

3,720
3,500
5 000

Arkansas . . .
White ...

161,0006
28 OOO6

28.3
42

.300
750

1.55
4 29

.024
161

4
4 5

48
20

250
120

1,513
630

Red

97 OOO7

38 3

-|Q

515

1 86

036

3 5

180

1 576

Minnesota
Wisconsin
Illinois .
St. Croix.
St. Francis
Yazoo
( Entire
\ Mississippi . .

16,027
12,280
29,013
7,576
7,989
12,794

1,259,0008

28
35
37
30
41.3
53.3

30
24
37

70
70

.474

.928
.7
.825
2.130
2.749

.505

3.75

4.5
6.15

.031

.438
.384

3.5
5

175

17
35

664

36
80

1800

'240
350

500
1,100

20,144

A, area of drainage in square miles.

B, rainfall in inches per year.

C, per cent of run-off, or rain reaching river.

D, average flow in second-feet for each square mile of drainage.

E, average high-water flow, second-feet per square mile.

F, average low-water flow in second-feet per square mile.

G, minimum discharge in thousands of cubic feet per second.
H, average discharge in thousands of cubic feet per second.
I, maximum discharge in thousands of cubic feet per second.

J, total annual discharge, normal, in thousand-millions of cubic feet (that is,
three sets of ciphers omitted).

Humphreys and Abbot, 169,000. ; Census, 179,635.

Geologic Survey and H. and A., 105.

Geologic Survey, 492,000 ; H. and A., 518,000.

Geologic Survey and H. and A., 120.

Census, 207,000. 6 Census, together, 184,742.

Census, 92,721. « H. and A., 1,244,000.

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

any rate, it establishes their relations among them-
selves with considerable accuracy.

From these figures it is at once apparent that
the tributaries of the main stream vary as widely
in character as in geographical distribution, from
the extreme of the Missouri, with but twelve per
cent of the water which falls on its enormous
watershed reaching the river, to the Yazoo, which
brings to the Mississippi seventy per cent of the
torrential rains which flood its valley. Were the
conditions of rainfall and run-off which prevail
in the Yazoo maintained over the Missouri water-
shed, that river would have an average discharge
exceeding the maximum floods of the Ohio, in-
stead of little more than half the average of that
stream as now, and if maintained over the whole
valley, would give the Mississippi an average dis-
charge of about 3,600,000 second-feet.

Shut off from the eastern and western seacoasts
by ranges of mountains, the Mississippi Valley
draws most of its moisture from the Gulf of
Mexico. As is well known to those who follow
the daily weather maps, cyclonic storms move in-
land from that body, up the Mississippi, and pass

THE HYDROLOGY OF THE SYSTEM

over either by way of the Great Lakes and the
St. Lawrence, or by way of the Upper Ohio and
New York. These storms bring moist winds and
heavy masses of clouds, from which the rain
descends heavily as they move inland, causing
the rainfall at the lower part of the main Missis-
sippi to be many times heavier than that above ;
the record rainfall at New Orleans being more
than nine inches in a single day and at Vicks-
burg nearly eleven inches in thirty-six hours.
This progress of the main storms up the valley
is the cause of the high rainfall and steady dis-
charge of the Yazoo and the St. Francis, which
lie directly in the course of the moisture streams,
and draw their waters partially from broad, low,
forested areas and partly from the front ridges
of hills which border the major bed of the river.
The first obstacles in the path of the storms
are the Ozark Mountains, which draw down a
heavy flow of moisture. This goes in part into
the White River of Arkansas, giving it the high
run-off of three quarters of a cubic foot a second
from each square mile of its watershed, and part
to the St. Francis and the Arkansas, partially

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

making up to the latter for the dryness of its
upper watershed.

Those storms which move north to the east-
ward of the Mississippi encounter the mountains
and high hills of central and eastern Tennessee,
where they create the Tennessee and the Cumber-
land, and passing beyond are still further denuded
of water by the higher peaks of the headwaters
of the Ohio, to which stream they give the co-
pious abundance of an average of forty-three
inches of annual rainfall. Those which have come
up the valley and passed the Ozarks encounter
near the Great Lakes cooler currents from the
northwest, which cause further precipitation and
provide for the upper central valley a fairly steady
though not excessive supply of moisture. But the
great region west of the Ozarks, comprising the
watersheds of the Red, the Arkansas, and the
Missouri, receives but a small part of the mois-
ture-laden air from the Gulf, and from that but a
sparse precipitation.

Still another factor enters into the problem of
the rivers, in the distribution of this water supply
through the year. It so happens that the Ohio,

THE HYDROLOGY OF THE SYSTEM

with a copious rainfall, receives the greatest part
of this in January and February, with some in
December and March. At that time in the year
the hillsides are frozen and absorb little, the sun
is obscured and the temperature low, so that there
is slight evaporation. Consequently the bulk of
the water finds its way quickly into the streams,
which are swollen in those months by sudden
freshets of enormous height, the river sometimes
rising sixty-five feet above low water at Cincin-
nati. These floods do not come every year, but
in occasional years when the precipitation in the
winter months becomes abnormal. It has at times
exceeded normal in those months by seventy-five
per cent. As the spring advances even equal rains
upon the Ohio produce less effect upon the stream
and its tributaries, the Cumberland and Tennes-
see never sending down a late flood, and the Ohio
itself never but once having produced an August
freshet. Absorption and evaporation take care of
the rainfall until, left to its natural conditions,
the Ohio becomes but a fortieth of its high-water
self. Its lowest water is about the end of October,
and there is often a small rise in November.

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

A different condition obtains on the Upper
Mississippi. This river springs from a series of
lakes in a heavily wooded region, from which there
is an approximately uniform flow throughout the
year. After a slight April rise from early rain
and melting snow, the main rise comes in the late
spring, and continues into June, though some-
times passing its climax much earlier. Many of
its tributaries, such as the Wisconsin, preserve a
similar character, the latter rising to a total
discharge of .928 cubic foot per square mile — a
sharp contrast to the Minnesota, a prairie stream
sometimes considered the original prolongation of
the Mississippi, which, with a larger watershed,
produces but half the flow. The combination of
all these streams is sufficient to send high water
down the Upper Mississippi usually in May, but
frequently as early as March or as late as June.
Its high-water flow alone, however, is not suffi-
cient to produce a freshet in the lower river.

The Missouri, with its enormous watershed,
receives but a scanty rainfall during the months
when the Ohio and Mississippi are at their max-
imum. Although swelling a little in April, not

THE HYDROLOGY OF THE SYSTEM

until May does its water come in semi-abundance,
May and June each frequently having as much as
all the preceding three months. When the heavy
rains do come they find the soil parched, and
sink in and are lost, or, before reaching rivers,
are dried up by the hot sun. Melting snows in
the mountains produce some aid throughout the
summer, especially on the main river above Great
Falls and on the Upper Platte ; but the rise which
moves slowly down the Missouri in May and June,
though drawn from more than twice the area,
attains at most to but half the magnitude of the
Ohio freshets. If it comes late for the Upper
Mississippi it passes harmlessly out to sea, but in
those exceptional years when the Upper Missis-
sippi is delayed or a late second rise takes place
therein, and the two become synchronous, there
is witnessed one of those famous June floods
which have in earlier and unleveed days spelled
disaster to planters along the lower river. The
river falls in September, but reaches its lowest
stage in November, as the ground freezes.

Sometimes these conditions are widely altered.
Thus the year 1903 saw all traditions upset, when

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

a mighty freshet from the Ohio in February found
the lower tributaries above the Arkansas in flood,
and made new records in the valley, to be fol-
lowed three months later by high water proceed-
ing from sudden and extreme rainfall on both
the Upper Mississippi and the Lower Missouri,
which sent those two rivers into the still high
stream below Cairo with large resultant damage.
But that is unusual. The season on the united
river comprises in most years one, or even two
very sudden high waters from the Ohio in Feb-
ruary or March, becoming dangerous only in ex-
ceptional years and by virtue of other influences ;
a period of easier water following them, and then
a gradual swelling from the upper river through
May, added to by lower streams and reaching its
maximum as the tardy Missouri pours forth its
tawny volume in time to make good the defi-
ciency of the decreasing central rivers. Reaching
its maximum toward late June, this then subsides.
The Ohio is shrunken as quickly as it rose, the
Cumberland and the Tennessee are down, the
Arkansas has fallen, and the Red as well, and by
the middle or end of August the whole lower sys-

THE HYDROLOGY OF THE SYSTEM

tern has usually dropped to that depressed condi-
tion known in the valley as "summer water,"
which is only alleviated by the Missouri, and
which in some years may not fall below six or
seven feet on any gauge, and again may show
markings close to or below zero of the scale. This
low water is of varying duration. Sometimes it
lasts but a few weeks. Sometimes, as in 1901, it
holds into December. Usually it is broken up
by the fall rains on the Upper Mississippi and a
gradual improvement on the Ohio, marked fre-
quently in November and December by sharp
waves from the latter as the first winter snows
are melted by belated rains.

The effects of these floods and low waters on
the several streams are as varied as are the streams
themselves. The Ohio comes down from an aged
and well-established region, in which its chan-
nel has been worn to the rock. It comes clear of
sediment except when the Allegheny or some
similar tributary is pouring a deluge into it, and
even then has but a small amount compared with
some of the others. It is essentially a rock-ribbed,
clear- water stream. The Upper Mississippi also

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

comes down to the Chain of Kocks above St. Louis
almost guiltless of the stains of erosion, and travel-
ing to a considerable extent in a bed permanently
shaped by a rocky contour. Not so the Missouri.
That stream, which has rightly earned the nick-
name of "Big Muddy," gains that soubriquet in
the long middle reach between the point where
it leaps forth from the confining fastnesses of the
Kocky Mountains and the point a thousand miles
farther down where it enters a land of fairly
steady rainfall and general conditions. In that
middle stretch it flows through the well-known
" Bad Lands " of western Dakota and Montana.
There every rain of however small proportions
has its erosive effect, and when the May and
June downpour comes upon the dusty ground it
runs with fast accumulating burden of silt to the
Missouri. So fast does this accumulate and so
great is the burden — which, indeed, shapes the
whole control problem of the Missouri and Lower
Mississippi — that the suspended matter at times
rises to one thirty-first by weight of the whole
moving stream. This silt must be carried to the
sea, and the effect of its carriage, and the gen-

THE HYDROLOGY OF THE SYSTEM

eral works which aid to keep it on its way, will
be described in later chapters.

As the basis for all leveling must be a proper
bench-mark, so on the Mississippi the corps o£
engineers have established certain optional marks
at convenient points on the main river and all its
tributaries, and from these levels as " zero " have
at many points erected gauges by which to read
and record the height and movement of the river
locally, and to establish the proper grading of
improvement works. These zero marks are at
each point supposed to represent "low water"
of some character, generally in a conveniently
chosen year or on an average of several years.
They are referred for final definition by way of
"Cairo datum" or "Memphis datum" to the
mean level of the Gulf of Mexico at Biloxi, and
beyond that they have no other meaning that is
other than relative. The " height " of the river
at any point or time as referred to the gauge
means not the depth, nor the navigable depth,
nor the actual height of the existing rise, but the
present level of the surface above the zero mark
on the local gauge. Thus, at St. Louis " normal "

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

low water is about four feet above zero on the
gauge. At Memphis, in December, 1901, the
river stood two tenths of a foot below zero. Yet
at the time there was ample water over all bars
even in the "Plum Point region" for navigation
as there carried on, and in the river in front of
the gauge the water was more than one hundred
feet deep.

These gauge readings, however, serve a very
good purpose aside from the aid they give to the
navigator. Current velocities at given stages hav-
ing been determined by experiment, the officers
of the Weather Bureau, who have this depart-
ment of river control in charge, are able to de-
termine the speed with which a flood is moving
off. Knowing the amount of rain which has fallen
on a watershed, and the condition of that water-
shed with regard to its ability to retain moisture
at that time, they are able to determine with
much exactness the amount of water which will
enter a stream, the speed with which it will come,
and the height to which the rivers below will rise.
This information they send out in daily bulletins
in time of danger to cities and villages ahead

THE HYDROLOGY OF THE SYSTEM

of the flood, and furnish also to navigators ; so
that those who are to be affected by the rise of
the waters will have accurate and timely warn-
ing.

There is reason to believe that with the cutting
away of forests, the progress of irrigation, and the
cultivation of the soil, the hydrology of some of
the branches of the Mississippi is slowly changing.
How large and how influential these changes are
can be determined only by close study and must
depend upon an accurate survey. Meanwhile
many methods have been adopted by which the
regime may be artificially modified, as by storing
flood waters, by planting trees so that a forest
cover may retain the rainfall, and by preparing
the earth to absorb the rain. These methods will
be considered more at length in the chapters
following.

CHAPTER III

CONTROLLING THE MAJOR BED

THE problem of river control for the purposes
of navigation and for the prevention of
floods is but a part of the general problem of the
conservation of a river; though it is but recently
that this larger problem has come into recogni-
tion. The proper conservation of the water fall-
ing upon any given drainage shed requires that
from the time it falls until it is merged in the
sea it be so conducted as to force it to yield its
maximum advantage for agriculture and for for- 1
estry, the largest possible percentage of the power
which is developed by its descent from the land
on which it lights to sea level, and the largest
good to navigation ; while at the same time carry-
ing away a minimum of soil and doing the least
damage to the region through which it flows. _>
This requires that about the sources of principal
streams considerable forest areas be maintained,
to prevent erosion, to retain silt, and to hold in

CONTROLLING THE MAJOR BED

check, beneath the forest cover, a considerable
amount of the rainfall both as an ameliorating
effect upon climate and for the purpose of pro-
viding a fund for supplying the river in dry
spells. It requires also the establishment of reser-
voirs about the headwaters of principal and even
of the smaller streams, by the enlargement of
lakes and ponds by dams, and the storage of
•water in ravines and gorges by the same means,
to hold back excessive rainfall and prevent floods
in the valley, while at the same time providing a
better low-water flow. It requires the erection of
dams at every quick water along the course, for
a double purpose : first, for the benefit of navi-
gation, providing deep water over the shoals of
the rapids; and second, to create a definite
" head " of water at which the power in the fall
of the stream can be developed. This power,
which in many rivers would be very small in low-
water seasons, is multiplied in value by the estab-
lishment of the forests and reservoirs, which make
the flow uniform ; and if properly handled for
the public gain or properly taxed, will pay back
in return the cost of making the improvements.

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

Farther down, the development of the stream re-
quires that flood waters which are notdmpounded
shall be retained within banks, and not allowed
to overflow adjacent lands; and that the low-
water flow shall be so restricted and in so per-
manently established a channel as always to pro-
vide a safe way for navigation.

For the latter purposes, that is, for preventing
floods and providing a channel in the lower
courses, several measures are undertaken: first,
the erection of false upper banks or levees along
the river's course to restrain floods; second, the re-
tention of water in local artificial reservoirs along
the stream itself, in a series of pools separated by
dams and connected by locks; third, the establish-
ment of permanent courses by the artificial harden-
ing of the river bank to prevent erosion ; fourth,
by removing foreign substances and preventing
them from entering the stream ; fifth, by so con-
tracting the low- water channel by dikes, dams,
and other means as to force the water to flow in
a narrower and therefore deeper bed; sixth, the
removal of natural obstructions, such as bars, rock
ledges, etc., by dredging or blasting. All these

CONTROLLING THE MAJOR BED

means in various combinations are used on the
several arms of the Mississippi system, the use of
each being dictated by the nature of the river and
of the bed in which it flows, — by the hydrology
of the stream and the character of the bottom.

Every river has, in fact, in its natural condi-
tion, two beds, the major and the minor. The
major bed of a stream is the territory it occupies
in time of flood. When it has risen "out of its
banks" and has begun to spread over adjacent
lands and swamps, it quickly fills and flows in its
major bed. The minor bed is the bed between the
banks, in which it flows at all ordinary stages. On
the Mississippi River below Cairo these banks are
from twenty to forty feet above ordinary low
water, — zero of the gauge, — and are separated
a distance of from one half to three miles. In
between them, in a still more constricted channel,
the river flows at extreme low water. When big
floods come, sometimes attaining a height of fifty
or even fifty-five feet at Cairo above extreme low
water, it flows over even the higher of these al-
luvial banks, and filling the swamps spreads back
to the distant hills, often before the levees were

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

built attaining a width of forty miles. This over-
flow strip, a region of fine alluvial land, eight
hundred miles long and forty wide, from the Chick-
asaw Bluffs on the east to Crowley's Kidge on the
west, is the major bed of the Lower Mississippi.
Not only the preservation of this immense
area, twenty-nine thousand square miles, but the
needs of navigation and of health require that
the river should be retained as nearly as possible
in the same bed at high water as it occupies at
lower stages; that is, though it rises many feet
above its banks, it should be so shaped that it
would still flow in exactly the same direction at
all points, folio wing the same bends and crossings.
Though this state has not yet been reached, and
the river is still allowed to "cut corners" at flood,
it has at least been approximated by the construc-
tion of artificial banks upon the natural ones,
sometimes to a height of thirty feet. These arti-
ficial banks, of which there are now about fourteen
hundred miles along the lower river, are in fact
nothing but earthen dams, more or less parallel
with the course of the stream, against which it
stands at high water, often to the very top. As

CONTROLLING THE MAJOR BED

this is the example of levee protection not only
upon the Mississippi but in the world, it will serve
here to illustrate the whole subject of major bed
development.

In order to understand this, however, it is
necessary to have a clear view of the river itself
and the region through which it flows. As we have
seen in the chapter on hydrology, the Mississippi
is made up of three great divisions, — the Ohio,
the Missouri, and the Upper Mississippi. To these
there was anciently added a fourth, the greatest of
them all, which came down from the Great Lakes
at Chicago by way of what is now the Illinois Eiver.
Of these three divisions, the greatest in volume is
the Ohio. The other two are about equal. The
Ohio comes down from a steep, mountain country,
in a permanent rock-compelled bed, with very few
places in which it can make a decided shift in
its location. It is naturally subject to sharp high
floods, and overflows considerable areas in its own
valley. The Missouri comes down from the west-
ern mountains over and through a vast plain where
any sudden waves are gradually lengthened out,
much is lost by evaporation and little addition is

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

received from tributaries. It flows between soft
banks, which are in turn shaped in the last resort
by high bluffs, located in general from a mile to
two miles apart. Similar bluffs, of great height
and beauty, border the Upper Mississippi. But this
stream, which once had a far greater volume than
it has in modern times, comes from a country vastly
different from that which gives rise to either of the
others. The northern part of Minnesota and Wis-
consin is a region of level plateaus, covered with
heavy woods, and richly-grassed prairies. Millions
of acres are covered with lakes and swamps in which
are stored the spring rains and melting snows,
to flow out with fairly steady discharge during
the summer months. Though heavy rains send a
spring rise and occasionally high water later in
the year down the upper river, it nowhere attains
heights such as do the freshets of the Ohio.

Not far from the confluence of the Mississippi
and the Ohio, and about one hundred and eighty
miles downstream from the mouth of the Mis-
souri, the Mississippi breaks through a spur of
the Ozark Mountains and enters a region entirely

different from that occupied by either of the

CONTROLLING THE MAJOR BED

three upper streams. Between Cape Girardeau
and the city of Commerce, Missouri, the river
seems trapped in a cul-de-sac, the bordering cliffs
crossing directly over its course. It twists and
turns tortuously, and, in a stretch of channel re-
markable for its rock reefs and obstructions,
breaks its way out into the alluvial bottoms of
the lower valley. Whether, as some hold, this
was the ancient mouth of the river, and all the
bottoms from this point to the Gulf — eight hun-
dred miles — have been created out of sediment
brought down in millions of years from the hill
country above ; whether the land from here down
has been made dry by the subsidence of the sea
or the upheaval of the bottom ; or whether the
ancient river flowed between banks all the way
down to Baton Kouge and has merely filled up
its ancient bed with silt as it has diminished in
size, — for all these theories have been put for-
ward and defended, — it is certain that from here
down the river flows in a land of its own crea-
tion, in which it still destroys and builds up,
makes bars, shifts its channel, and cuts in new
directions, not as freely as in its pristine condi-

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

tion, but far more freely than it will be allowed
to do when the engineers have completed their
work.

From Commerce down, the bordering hills are
about forty miles apart, constituting, as I have
said, the major bed of the river. Through this
the river itself, in its minor bed, winds an irreg-
ular course. From the west side, at Commerce,
it crosses by a long and crooked diagonal to strike
the easterly bluffs at Columbus, Kentucky. Fol-
lowing them with more or less regularity as
far as Memphis, it then moves in an opposite
diagonal back to the west side at Helena, Arkan-
sas. It thus has left, between itself and Crowley's
Ridge, an irregular tract, pointed at both ends,
forty miles wide in the middle, and containing
about six thousand square miles. This region is
known generally as the St. Francis basin. In it
the land is composed of layers of earthy mould,
sand, and silt from the river. At the riverside,
where there have been no recent changes, it
stands about forty feet high above low water.
From this point it slopes downward and back-
ward about seven feet in the first mile, and after

CONTROLLING THE MAJOR BED

that a foot to the mile, to the bluffs, or rather to
the St. Francis River, which, with some irregu-
larity, follows the trend of the bluffs. The drain-
age of the swamp is through this back river. The
greater elevation of the land at the Mississippi
side is due to the fact that its waters are heavily
burdened with the suspended earth of which these
bottoms are built. As they spill over in flood they
lose speed, and also their ability to carry silt. The
greatest burden is deposited at once, and the
smaller amount farther back. The stream at the
back has a very gentle slope and a sluggish cur-
rent ; and as the Mississippi has a greater slope,
the St. Francis, which in its upper reaches is per-
haps fifteen to eighteen feet below the larger
stream, flows into it at Helena.

From Helena the Mississippi turns easterly
again, and, leaving the westerly hills, takes an-
other long, diagonal course to the east side, which
it strikes at Vicksburg. It then follows that side
with more or less regularity to Baton Rouge, and
there, leaving the high ground for the last time,
passes down in mid valley through its delta to the
Gulf, passing no more land which is above its

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

own flood level Between Memphis and Vicks-
burg, on the easterly side, it leaves a second tract
slightly larger than the St. Francis basin, but
almost identical in character, known as the Yazoo
Delta, because of the stream which drains it
along its bluffs. Below Helena on the west, and
above the Arkansas, it leaves another, which is
called the White Kiver swamp, and below that
on the same side the Tensas, and below that the
Atchafalaya. The Plaquemines region lies along
both sides toward the mouth of the river.

These great swamps or bottoms of the Missis-
sippi — and it must be remembered that in call-
ing them " swamps " I am referring to their
natural condition and not to their present estate
— have had an influence extremely important
upon the regime and the navigability of this sec-
tion of the river.

There comes to the Mississippi, chiefly from
the Missouri, a great burden of suspended earthy
matter, usually very finely divided, which it carries
on toward the sea. This amounts in a single year
to as much as would make a cube of land a mile
square and three hundred feet deep. The ability

CONTROLLING THE MAJOR BED

of a running stream to carry such a burden de-
pends upon several factors, not yet entirely
understood ; but chiefly upon velocity and depth,
with some modification due to the shape of the
river bed. The Missouri, being a very swift stream,
carries it along without difficulty. The Missis-
sippi, however, has a much more gentle slope,
and is only enabled to carry it by its greater vol-
ume and depth. In the course of almost countless
years, during which a fairly constant regime has
been maintained, it has extended its valley into
the Gulf of Mexico and gradually altered its bed
until it has established, from the rock shelf at
Commerce to the mouth of its passes, a total
length and slope which just enable it to carry
this burden, approximately all of it at average
stages, to the sea. For this purpose it not only
winds back and forth across its major bed, as I
have already described it, but in addition it makes
these windings very crookedly, continually turn-
ing to and fro, sometimes in great horseshoes, so
that in covering six hundred miles of air-line dis-
tance it flows through more than a thousand
miles of channel.

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

Having established a bed which suits it at
average stages, it is in its natural state contin-
ually modifying this to accommodate temporary
stages. Thus at low water it deposits silt, filling
up its bed — because of its inability to carry its
burden — until it has so restricted its channel
that its speed is quickened to a point at which it
is again able to carry its load. On the other hand,
as high water approaches, the proportion of silt
carried by the increasing waters is reduced and
the speed of current increased, so that the river,
which now requires temporarily a larger bed, is
able to pick up and carry along the silt which it
dropped at low water. Both of these actions,
however, are again modified by another feature ;
as the river rises it spreads out over considerable
areas within its minor bed which the low-water
flow does not cover. The outline of its main
current is then altered, and it fills in with silt the
deep trench constituting the channel, in certain
broad reaches and crossings, and modifies its
cross section to a considerable extent. As the
river falls again and finds it necessary to seek its
old and smaller bed, it cuts out these fillings and

CONTROLLING THE MAJOR BED

carries the earth in them on to some more con-
venient place of deposit.

It does not, of course, always happen that the
silt which has thus heen recently deposited is the
easiest to pick up. The swiftest water is always
the place of erosion, the slack water of deposit.
The swift water in the river ordinarily follows the
outside of every bend, and from the foot of each
bend crosses over through a "crossing" to the
head of the next. In a bend, therefore, the typi-
cal cross section is something like figure a, while
in a crossing it is like figure 6, and in the next
bend below like c.

High Water'

Levee Medium

Channel

V"X'Low Water -,

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

As the swiftest water is next the bank, it is
often at this point that erosion takes place. Some-
times this erosion is all in the lower part of the
bank, which becomes undermined, so that the
upper part topples into the stream. Sometimes
the whole bank is water-soaked by a long period
of high water and then suddenly exposed and left
unstable by a quick fall of the river so that from
its own weight it falls in. In either case the river
there becomes burdened with extra silt — often
an excessive burden, which it proceeds to drop in
the next crossing, where, as the current becomes
more general through the whole breadth of the
river, there is no part with speed enough to carry
the burden. This work continues until the cross-
ing is so blocked, and the length of the bend so
increased, as to affect the slope of the river and
check its ability to carry burdens. Often it
spreads, by the deflection of the current, into the
next bend. In this way a caving sometimes moves
like a wave for a long distance down the valley,
accompanied by a similar progress of foaming
and moving bars.

It is owing to these characteristics that the
48

CONTROLLING THE MAJOR BED

great swamps have had much of their influence.
At the head of the St. Francis region the Missis-
sippi rises in time of greatest floods ahout fifty-
five feet above the low-water stages, which puts
it about ten feet higher than the bank along the
stream side. As it rises it first fills all of its minor
bed, wiping out temporarily the channel, and
flowing with some uniformity in the enlarged
trough, readjusting bottom slopes and curves. As
it rises higher it soon spills over at the head of
the swamp. At once several things take place.
The rise is checked temporarily until the region
back of the bank is filled. The checking of the
advance of a rise checks the current, not only in
the part which overflows, but in the part which
remains in the minor bed. That outside the minor
bed deposits considerable matter along the river
bank, and then, depositing less as it moves, fills
up the back lands and flows slowly into the St.
Francis Biver and sluggishly onward toward the
mouth at Helena. The wave in the river itself
passes slowly on, overflowing more and more as
the rise continues to come, till it has filled the
swamp, when it passes on down the river. In this

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

checking of the advance a considerable filling
takes place in the minor bed, and this filling is
chiefly in the part opposite the middle or widest
part of the swamp. As the river falls again this
filling forms something of a dam, through which
it is necessary for the lower river to cut a new
way. This new way does not always follow, in a
natural state, the former way, and as a result
there develops a region of uncertain channels in
which the banks, cutting out to new shapes to
accommodate the newly shaped low-water cur-
rents, are gradually driven wide apart, leaving
such a broad and shallow stream, full of bars and
shoals, as the notorious Plum Point region abreast
the centre of the St. Francis swamp, or the Stack
Island reach abreast the middle of the Yazoo.

Of course, in a natural state, as the river spills
over the swamp, the crest is lowered, and the flow
delayed. Although practically the same amount
of water which passes Cairo passes Helena, if the
flood is a short one the crest in the open river
may pass Helena before the flood from the swamp
arrives there; but if it is a long, slow flood, the
swamp water may arrive in time to add a new

CONTROLLING THE MAJOR BED

crisis at that point. In the course of this manoeu-
vre a flood which stood 55 feet on the gauge at
Cairo might be spread out in the St. Francis so
that but 33 feet would be registered at Memphis ;
but Helena would see the flood there mount to 48
or even to nearly 50 feet. Vicksburg, again, where
the Yazoo emptied, would also see nearly 50 feet,
and at Natchez, where another large volume is
concentrated, there would be almost as much.

Two hundred years ago, when the settlement
of the Mississippi Valley began at New Orleans,
the first dwellings were upon a bit of elevated
ground which lay above all but the highest floods.
In exceptional years, however, this sixteen-foot
elevation was inundated; and to prevent trouble
the inhabitants threw up low earthen ramparts to
keep out the flood ; these being known as levees,
or raised places. As the fertility of the valley was
tested and the river-bottom lands proved to be
fabulously rich for sugar and rice, these walls were
extended by individual planters up and down
both banks of the river. In the lower lands they
were of considerable height, sometimes ten or
twelve feet ; usually of steep slope and not strong,

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

but sufficient to keep out ordinary floods. They
were thrown up by slave labor, often with logs
and other foreign matter added to make filling
easy, and were often broken — a break being
called a "crevasse." They were sometimes over-
flowed. Later these walls were farther extended
under local and state taxation, and about fifty
years ago the federal government gave all the
local overflowed lands remaining in public domain
to the several states to be sold to create a fund for
levee building and drainage. Under this act, by
1860 there was a very considerable wall all the
way up to the mouth of Red River, and, after a
short gap there, up the Arkansas side to Napo-
leon, at the mouth of Arkansas River. On the
other side the Yazoo Valley was partly protected,
and there were isolated levees below. The war
made a long intermission in levee construction
and repair. Before it was over marauding troops,
cannon balls, and most of all unchecked floods,
had made great breaches in the line. Long gaps
occurred in many places. From Cairo to the sea
there were only isolated places, such as the city
of New Orleans, which were safely protected.

CONTROLLING THE MAJOR BED

The whole swamp country was subject to every
out-of-banks flood. And so prostrate was the
country that as late as 1880 there was still to be
seen the spectacle of the Mississippi forty miles
wide, filling all of its major bed, sweeping on
without other obstruction than cities and forests,
from Cairo to the Gulf. By that time, however,
systematic work on the development of the levee
lines had been carried well forward, and these
progressed steadily, so that by 1907 for the first
time in the history of the valley a record-breaking
flood, passing fifty feet at Cairo, went from there
down the whole length of the channel without
overtopping or breaking a single levee line, except
a small and ancient earthwork a long distance
below New Orleans. The St. Francis, the Yazoo,
the White, the Atchafalaya, and the Pontchar-
train basins all lay safe behind their levees, un-
injured by the flow.

These levees, as will be shown when the man-
ner of construction is described, are nothing more
than earthen ramparts, varying in height from
three or four feet in the lower reaches, to twenty-
five or even thirty at exposed places; sometimes

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

five feet, sometimes more than two hundred in
thickness. In general they follow the contour of
the minor bed, at some little distance back from
the stream, so as to protect as much as possible of
the land in the swamp areas from overflow. But
it has not been possible, with the limited funds
at hand and with the dangers of bank erosion,
to follow around the bends, or to keep in many
pkces between the river and some inland lake
or slough. Accordingly much land is left out-
side of them, and more is abandoned from year
to year as the river shifts its course. Nevertheless
the levees do afford protection to the land behind
them in such degree that the products raised
on the land in any average year return many
fold the entire cost of the system for the past
two hundred years.

During the erection of these walls many nota-
ble changes have been made in the flood regime
of the river and many in its availability for navi-
gation. Though the full effect of these is not yet
felt, and there will be slight further modification
before the final completion of a major bed ex-
actly coinciding with the minor bed, it is possible

BEHIND A LEVEE

LEVEE PROTECTION IN FLOOD-TIME

CONTROLLING THE MAJOR BED

now to describe the lower river as it will exist for
centuries to come with some degree of accuracy.
This river now flows in a major bed so restricted
that at least twenty-five thousand square miles of
its former area has been excluded from it. As a
result, when a flood passes Cairo and spills over
the banks, it comes at once to the earthen wall
of the St. Francis levee system, which prevents its
retreat over the swamp to the St. Francis Eiver.
There is, therefore, but a slight spilling, and the
crest of the flood continues to rise and pass swiftly
down the Mississippi in about the same shape as
it passes Cairo. At Plum Point there is no shoal-
ing and slacking, but instead a constant current
that enables the engineers to maintain a deep
channel through the intricate bars. At Memphis,
instead of 33 feet as formerly, a flood rises 35,
38, and at last even 41 feet, with an assurance
that some day it will go to 43, but an accompany-
ing assurance that all that water will be within
the banks of the river. At Helena there has been
but a slight change, the concentration of the St.
Francis and Yazoo floods raising the flood level
on the gauge to about 54 feet. At Vicksburg it

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has gone, with the closing of White Kiver, to
53 feet, and from there down there has been
no greater change. At New Orleans 16 feet has
given place to 18 and this again to 22, and now
the levee front of the city has been made safe to
withstand a flood of more than 24 feet, beyond
which it is not probable that even with all the
tributaries in flood at once the river can come.
Thus confined between banks, the flood waters
flow with a steeper slope and greater speed;
but being amply accommodated in the artificial
major bed, they do little damage, and the crest
moves to the sea more quickly than under natural
conditions. It is noteworthy that so accurate is
engineering knowledge of this part of the river,
that the height to which a certain record flood
would rise on the Memphis gauge when the St.
Francis was closed was predicted definitely by the
engineers before beginning the levee building op-
posite the city ; and when the last gap had been
closed and a flood of the foreseen magnitude
passed Cairo, it rose at Memphis to within one
tenth of a foot of the predicted height, and only
failed to reach it exactly because of a crevasse

CONTROLLING THE MAJOR BED

at Hollybush when the crest was approaching the
city.

The building of levees has not been altogether
unopposed by the people of the valley. As the
closing of the successive swamps has limited the
major bed and sent the crests of the confined
floods higher, and as levees have had to be in-

O '

creased to meet them, the theory has been ad-
vanced, and has been quite widely accepted, that
the river builds up its bed in proportion as the
walls are raised, and that eventually we will be
confronted by massive walls indefinitely high, be-
tween which will flow an elevated stream on a bed
higher than the surrounding country. This is, of
course, an absurdity. The mouth of the Missis-
sippi at the Gulf is at a fixed level, and the river
banks between which it flows extend with almost
immeasurable slowness. The head of the lower
river at Commerce is also at a fixed level, estab-
lished by the rock rim there. Between these points
the Mississippi is of a definite length, and that
length, which it has established for itself in an
age-long wandering, is just sufficient to maintain
the necessary slope to maintain in turn the aver-

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

age stability of the banks of the stream with the
amount of water and consequent current there is
to be discharged. These conditions cannot be al-
tered. If the river is shortened by a cut-off, its in-
creased current eats into the adjacent bends and
lengthens itself till it has again established its
equilibrium. Any raising of the bed of this stream
in any locality would at once cause a very decided
change in its regime. The current above that point
would be checked by loss of slope, and the current
below would be increased and the whole river
would be altered. If this continued for any length
of time, we should have an absurdity in a river
flowing along a level bed below Cairo for an inde-
finite distance and at last plunging over a preci-
pice of mud into the Gulf. As the bed increased
in height we would have the bottom of the river
above the land and would have to use elevators to
get up to low-water level. There is not the slight-
est evidence on which to base any supposition
that any such raising of the bed takes place. The
increase of the levees from year to year is due, as
we have shown, to the contraction of the major
bed ; and the only known action caused by levees

CONTROLLING THE MAJOR BED

in the channel and minor bed is in the direction
of the elimination of the natural dam and pool
regime and the establishment of a more even
slope and a more regular volume.

CHAPTER IV

LEVEE BUILDING AND MAINTENANCE

THE levees of the Mississippi — and this ap-
plies to the whole system and not alone to
the lower river — are nothing but earthen ram-
parts, built of the material to be found at hand,
and designed according to the nature of this
material and of the attack which is to be made
upon them. There are along the bank three
principal kinds of material from which to build,
— clay, loam, and sand. Of these, clay is the best.
Sand and loam have each their bad and their good
points. Loam when very wet is apt to slump away
entirely. Sand, on the other hand, is extremely
unstable. Experience has demonstrated that a
levee, to have permanent wearing ability, should
have an eight-foot crown and slope away, in clay
or loam, about one foot vertical for every three
horizontal. If the levee exceeds ten feet in height,
it is reinforced on the land side by a bench or
banquette about eight or ten feet wide, sloping

LEVEE BUILDING

away one on three to one on five, the banquette
being from four to eight feet below the level of
the crown. Banquettes are occasionally as wide
as twenty feet. Levees built of sand are sometimes
sloped on both sides one on five, this dimension
being used in the Lake Bolivar levee at the head
of the Yazoo system, a wall twenty-five feet high,
having a base more than two hundred and fifty
feet wide.

When such a levee is to be built, the line which
it is to follow is first selected as a compromise
between the ideal and the various rival interests
at stake. An ideal line would exactly follow and
closely neighbor the top of the lower bank. This
is prohibited by the unstable nature of this bank
except where revetment (to be later described)
has been applied. Such a line would also be
very long, and consequently exceedingly costly.
It must be set back. This setting back at once
brings the interests of the landowners into play,
to have selected a line which will protect as
much land as possible. The shaping of the cur-
rent, the availability of material, and the security
of the foundation must all be then considered. In

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the end a line is drawn, profiles made, the quan-
tity of excavation and filling estimated with a
near approach to exactness, and contracts are let,
the usual price being somewhere in the neigh-
borhood of fourteen cents a cubic yard for the
completed levee.

The contractor, coming upon the ground with
his equipment of excavators, teams, and men, first
clears the land to be covered by the levee, and
that from which he is to excavate. Several rigid
conditions bind him in this. Under his contracts
he must not allow in the wall any stump, stick,
log, chunk, bush, or other foreign material ; for
such a thing, decaying, may leave a hole which
will cause a crevasse. If he leaves such a thing,
he forfeits not only a heavy bond, but all his
compensation as well. He must get his earth all
from the river side of the levee, and must not
disturb that for a considerable distance — leaving
a berm not less than forty feet wide before the
levee. The borrow pit which he makes must not
be deeper than four feet on the levee side. Hav-
ing finished clearing, he excavates down the mid-
dle of the strip a " muck ditch," often ten feet

LEVEE BUILDING

deep by twelve wide for a large levee, and intended
as a bond between the levee and the wall. In some
districts the earth which goes into this is pud-
dled, in others it is merely packed. Then with
scrapers and teams, or with men and barrows, or,
as in some lower districts, with excavators and
conveyors, he begins the construction. For this
work barrows and hand labor are preferred and
often stipulated, because they give a more solid
and uniform structure. The levee is built some-
what wider than it is to stand, and larger in all
proportions, first to allow for settling, second be-
cause it must finally be trimmed to dimension. No
earth is allowed to be added on the outside to make
up for a lack of dimension, as such an addition
would slump away under flood pressure. The
whole thing must be homogeneous. If the levee
is being constructed with scrapers and mules, the
animals are sent in a drove up and down the line
at frequent intervals, to pack the earth. When
the whole wall is completed and has been approved
by the inspectors, it is trimmed to its larger, un-
shrunk dimensions, and is then allowed to settle
slowly into size. Its surface is sodded with Ber-

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

muda grass, -which gives a good turf, offering
excellent protection against wind and rain erosion,
and it is ready for use. Thereafter it is kept
mowed, to prevent weeds from injuring it ; it is
protected against grazing animals, and though
used as a footpath is forbidden ground to wheeled
vehicles. If it is built of clay, it may continue to
shrink beyond anticipation, and require that a
wholly new- layer be built up from the back, be-
ginning at the base with a wide foundation and
sloping up to and over the crest.

This levee work is done by the federal and
state governments in partnership. Prior to 1882
the funds all came out of the taxes or the pro-
ceeds of swamp land sales. In that year the
Mississippi Eiver Commission, an organization
within the War Department created for the pur-
pose of improving the Mississippi, took up levee
building as one feature of the improvement of
navigation, and, except when positively forbidden
by Congress, has continued that work ever since,
spending nearly $1,000,000 a year on it. The
several states have created levee districts in the
swamp areas, each of which has a regular official

LEVEE BUILDING

organization. These districts are enabled to issue
bonds or certificates of indebtedness with which
to pay for the work, and to redeem these have a
sinking fund made up of taxes. These taxes in
some districts are on every acre of protected
land, in others on produce — fifty cents on every
bale of cotton, and in proportion on all other
material grown on land which the levee has re-
claimed. In addition, they are aided by a general
state tax. Of the $60,000,000 spent on the lower
river levees since the Civil War, two thirds have
been paid by the levee districts and the states at
large.

Over all this work the Mississippi Kiver Com-
mission exercises supervision. In dividing its
funds among the several districts according to
their needs, it sometimes gives them the money
for work, sometimes does the work itself. It has
established a series of bench marks, from which
it has based a so-called " M. K. C." grade, to
which completed levees must conform, and this
grade has been raised from time to time as the
height of flood locally has been raised by the
closing of the swamps. It has been the intention

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

to keep this grade three feet above the highest
known high-water level. Of course the levees
have never entirely reached this grade at any
time, as it has been necessary to build the most
important lines, and to protect the whole district
through the years of lesser floods rather than
protect a small part of it from the occasional
record-makers. Consequently it has been the pol-
icy of the commission to allow the states to go
forward with the building of these lesser levees,
and to spend most of its own resources follow-
ing this up by adding new backs and crowns
to bring state levees up to "M. R. C." grade.
At present this grade is actually attained in only
a fair proportion of the lines ; but the time is
fast approaching when the whole complete levee
will be brought up to standard.

Levee lines protect the lands back of them only
so long as they stand intact. The moment a levee
is overtopped or broken through, the break so
made is quickly widened by the head of water
against it, and a torrent flows through, inundating
the land often for several hundred square miles,
to a greater or less depth. Such a break is called

LEVEE BUILDING

a crevasse. In time of flood the chief labor of the
levee engineer is watching the weak points of his
levee to guard against such a catastrophe, and
some of the most exciting romance in the history
of American engineering has been written in the
actual reports of their doings.

A crevasse may be caused by many things.
A muskrat or woodchuck, or even a crawfish,
burrowing through the earth, may leave a hole
through which the water may flow and start a
leak. An old tree trunk left in the wall, or in
the bank beneath it, may leave a cavity which
fills with seepage water and causes a collapse. An
underground passage, unsuspected, may be forced
open suddenly by the head — often ten or twelve
feet — of the water standing against the levee,
and may boil up as a miniature geyser ten or a
hundred feet back behind the wall. Sometimes
a flood rises higher than the wall and overtops
it. Sometimes, when the water is near the top, a
cross wind makes waves which erode the upper
layers and cause a crevasse. Sometimes, after a
long flood, the water-soaked earth loses its sta-
bility and slumps flat away, — or more often a

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

part of the back wall caves away, preliminary,
unless it is checked, to a total collapse. Against
all of these things the engineer is on watch night
and day during high water. Up and down the
levee go the guards — often armed lest planters
from the one bank may attempt to cut the levee
opposite for their own greater safety. At strate-
gic points, usually on the railway — for the rail-
road is as interested as the farmer in keeping the
flood away from its right of way — the engineer
masses carloads of lumber, sometimes of earth,
and always of sacks. He has his men ready at
call. The guards, pacing up and down, report at
short intervals, and if one has found the seepage
water in the ditch back of the levee increasing
alarmingly, he reports accordingly. If a stream of
clear water is found coming through, he gives an
alarm and measures are taken to stop it. Such a
stream, however, is not as dangerous as a muddy
stream ; for clear water is always slow seepage,
while muddy water either comes through a hole
unobstructed or else is full of eroded material
from the levee. In either case the engineer may
throw earth on the river side of the levee, hoping

LEVEE BUILDING

it will be carried into the hole, — a measure
seldom used, — or he may, and usually does, loop
around the leak with sand-bags and earth, form-
ing an inclosure in which the water gathers till
it has head enough to check the flow.

If a sand boil occurs, it is either similarly
looped or is beaten down with brush and masses
of earth. The greatest danger, however, is from
wave erosion along the top. For this purpose the
engineer has carloads of boards and sacks, with
which, on the exposed line, he hastily constructs
a batter-wall, either as a small breakwater to
destroy the force of the waves, or as a capping
of sand-bags to prevent erosion. This is a matter
most difficult of accomplishment. The destructive
floods come ordinarily in February and March,
when the water is extremely cold, and the men
setting the wall or laying the sacks must often
be knee or even waist deep in it for long periods.
If sacks are being used, it is fairly certain that
the land immediately behind the levee will be
soggy from the same influences which have caused
the flood, and the engineer must go some dis-
tance to fill his sacks, which must then be borne

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

on men's shoulders to the place where they are
needed. If, as sometimes happens, there is danger
of overtopping, the earth must often be taken
from the back of the levee itself, — a dangerous
expedient, — and piled hastily in sacks on top.
By this means the Hollybush levee of the St.
Francis was saved in 1907, though the river over-
topped it for a quarter of a mile.

One of the most dangerous of all accidents is
the slumping away of part of the back earth. The
instinctive action of the green engineer is to heap
more in the place it came from ; this, however, is
to court destruction, as the already water-soaked
and weakened levee will ill support the additional
burden. The safer and better way is to build,
back of it, a well-braced wooden wall set against
posts, and against this heap up earth, gradually
bringing it to the foot and so to the slope of the
levee, the whole being braced against the wooden
wall. If this cannot be done, brush is thrown into
the gap, and over this earth, preferably in sacks,
is piled, the brush distributing the burden and
preventing further slip.

At times all these measures and the most heroic
70

LEVEE BUILDING

efforts of the engineer fail in the purpose, and
a crevasse occurs. In such a case two principal
lines of action are open to the engineer. He may
attempt to close the crevasse, or he may devote
himself to saving as much as possible of the levee
wall from being torn away. If the levee is a low
one, — and in Louisiana, in the neighborhood of
New Orleans and below that city, this is most
apt to be true, — there is often hope of a success-
ful battle with the flood. But if the levee be a
high one, or the flood standing high against it,
such measures are most often futile, and the best
work is that which stops the widening of the
gap at the earliest moment.

In this latter case the engineer hurries to the
scene large gangs of men, often contributed freely
and gladly by the neighboring plantation owners,
and carloads or boatloads of wooden scantling
and timbers, together with bags and barges of
sand from the nearest available source; for it
must be remembered that when a crevasse has
occurred, there is no longer earth to be obtained
at the back of the levee, the inrushing waters
having drowned out the whole neighborhood.

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

With a head of six to ten feet through the gap,
the roar of the rushing waters can be heard for a
long distance, and the end of the levee tears away
in masses, falling with an increasing roar into the
current. To attempt to erect any false work what-
ever during this first stage would be futile ; but
as soon as the first sign of slackening appears
the engineer begins two moves, one to revet the
ends of the levee themselves, the other to erect
flanking or protecting dikes to prevent the cur-
rent striking against the end. The dikes are
erected some distance back from the end of the
levee on the outer side. Timbers, usually four
inches square, are driven as piling, usually by
hand sledges, in four or more parallel rows, close
together, and braced diagonally with scantling.
These piling are connected into bents, and the
successive bents are strongly braced to each other
and equipped with a runway on or near the top.
Often the current undermines and sweeps away
this frail structure, but if it holds until completed
the workmen then begin filling it with sacks of
sand. The dike projects out perhaps a hundred
feet, perhaps more or less, — sufficient, at any

LEVEE BUILDING

rate, to provide a shield for the levee end from the
current sweeping along the side. The sacks of sand
are carried out on the runway and dropped by
skilled men, in courses, the bottom one reaching
out several rows each side of the dike to prevent
undermining. Then as each course is added, the
face of the wall opposed to the current is kept
flush, but the back face is sloped in, so as to pro-
vide a gradual spillway on that side and furnish
more adequate bracing. If such a wall holds, the
next move is to revet the ends of the levee them-
selves. This is done by covering them with sacks
of sand, sometimes hurled into the breach, some-
times lowered from ropes so as to lie exactly in
place. The endeavor is to cover the exposed part
entirely, to prevent further caving.

When both these tasks have been accomplished,
there remains nothing for the engineer to do but
to await low water and a time for repairs. The
flood pouring through the crevasse will jeopardize
no person, because it flows over so large a terri-
tory that it rises slowly. But it may cause much
damage to land. An unrestricted rise of the river
generally deposits more or less silt over the land

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

on which it stands ; but a rush of swift water
through a crevasse carries with it considerable
sand, with which it may cover formerly profitable
land to its entire destruction. Otherwise it causes
no damage except as it is followed by malaria and
as it delays the spring planting. A crevasse in
summer destroys the whole season's crop, but
breaks at that season are extremely rare. As the
water outside the crevasse subsides, that which
has passed in gradually finds its way back to the
drainage stream of the inundated " swamp." If it
is near cropping time, and quick drainage is es-
pecially desirable, as soon as the flood has sub-
sided enough to make operations prospectively
successful the engineer begins extending his old
dikes or building new ones across the gap, and
if these stand he fills them with sacks, and thus
makes a temporary dam and allows the land to
dry.

In the lower part, where gaps have been suc-
cessfully closed, this same method is followed. The
dikes, of timber bents, are extended from both
sides in an arch, as wide often as the batture in
front of the levee will allow, until they meet in

LEVEE BUILDING

the centre, and gain a new stability from their
union. They are then rapidly sacked up. The
danger point in this work is at the centre, the
gradual closing of the arch sometimes forcing the
water to scour so deeply at the cap that the bents
there cannot be made stable. This method was
followed in one of the most famous bits of work
ever seen on the river, the closing of the Conrad
crevasse. But in a similar attempt, in 1903, to
close the Hymelia crevasse near New Orleans,
when the sugar lands were being devastated, it
failed because at the critical moment a barge
loaded with lumber slipped its lines and bumped
too heavily against the cap of the arch, carrying
away the whole structure.

The levee system of the Lower Mississippi is
now fairly complete as far as regards the protec-
tion of the alluvial lands, though there are hun-
dreds of miles yet to be brought up to the latest,
and final, Mississippi River Commission Grade.
As it stands, the levee of 1400 miles represents
an investment of $55,000,000. To complete it to
grade on its present lines will cost $10,000,000
more. If it could be held so, it would satisfy the

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

farmers and the states which lie behind it. Un-
fortunately, or perhaps fortunately, for the navi-
gator, it cannot be held so. A large percentage is
lost every year by the caving away of the banks
under it, and new loops are continually being
constructed around such threatened breaks. This
costs heavily, and can only be finally guarded
against by the use of revetment, such as will be
described in the chapter on the minor bed. The
development of the river for navigation also re-
quires the use of this revetment, and needs also
what the farmer desires but does not demand, the
close proximity of the levee to the river bank
even in the points-within-bends.

But before such a radical measure as this is
adopted, there is a new need to be solved in levee
construction. Levees as they stand are but walls
of earth. A long flood standing against them
lessens their resistance. Any small animal can
cause an unsuspected hole in them and produce
disaster. The least break destroys their utility for
scores of miles. It is therefore essential that there
should be added to the levee system some feature
by which it may be rendered water-tight and

LEVEE BUILDING

tight against the borers. Such a solution will prob-
ably be found in a concrete core, either set when
the levee is built, poured in a trench afterward, or
created by the driving of matched concrete piling.
Steel and wood are useless in such a work, as the
one rusts and the other rots away. But concrete
endures forever. If it cracks in the settling of the
levees it leaves but a tiny gap, through which
only so much water seeps as will wet the ground
immediately behind it. If the top of the levee is
battered off by waves, it but uncovers the concrete
wall, which stands firm. A boring animal will be
turned back, or, if he finds a crack, go through a
substance which will not cave off, and which pre-
vents the hole widening to a crevasse. And more
than all, the seepage through concrete will be so
slight that the whole back half of the wall will
remain almost entirely dry, and therefore perma-
nently stable, so that there will be no sloughing
off and no collapsing at critical moments.

Some such solution will be found, and in time
the levee walls will be so constructed, close to the
river, on both sides, and protected by permanent
banks in front. The lands which they protect are

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

so fertile that from a bale and a half to two bales
of cotton can be grown to the acre, and in corn,
alfalfa, and truck they produce all the way up to
$100 an acre a year. In fact, much of the land,
cleared and drained, is already worth $100 an
acre, and will before many years be worth much
more. It has river and railway transportation fa-
cilities to many markets, and is certain to become
one of the richest gardens in the world. If the
St. Francis alone were completely occupied, and
if it produced in a single year but $10,000 to
the square mile, — and it is capable of more
than quadrupling that, — it would yield in a year
$60,000,000, or all that the entire levee system
has cost to the present time.

CHAPTER V

THE MINOR BED: KEGULAKIZATION

THE principal object of the development of
the minor bed of a river is the establishment
of regular navigation. The accomplishment of
this purpose requires that there should be created
a channel which shall have at all stages, low and
high, an adequate depth and width, not too sharp
curves and not too strong a current for the eco-
nomical transportation of cargoes. The depth of
water over the shoalest bar determines the carry-
ing capacity of the entire stream. Though inter-
ruption by ice during certain months, or inter-
ruption by shoal water in summer during a period
which it is possible to predict with considerable
accuracy from year to year, do not debar a river
from profitable use, uncertain interruptions, the
danger of occasional bars, the presence of un-
suspected snags, or any uncertainty in the chan-
nel, instantly remove the river containing them
from the list of secure burden-bearers to the

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

position now occupied by the Missouri and most
other American streams. Money spent on such a
river which does not take this into account may
be spent for decades without profitable return.

This development of the minor bed is chiefly
accomplished by measures which fall under two
heads, regularization and canalization. Regular-
ization, which is the method usually employed on
soft-bottomed rivers and on streams which have
ample water and gentle currents, consists in the
erection of works of various sorts, which consti-
tute or create false banks and directrices for the
river, giving it a width so nearly uniform as to
preserve a fairly even depth and cross section.
Canalization, which is employed on the Ohio and
on other hard-bottomed rivers or streams of little
water or too swift descent, consists in the crea-
tion of a series of slack-water pools or canals,
separated by dams, and connected, for purposes
of navigation, by locks.

Methods of regularization differ in clear and
in silt-bearing rivers. On the Ohio, where they
are used as auxiliary to the lock and dam method,
the works are built solidly, of rock and timber,

THE MINOR BED

to act as actual false banks to the river. On the
Mississippi, in which no such works could be
given a permanent foundation, they are of frail
construction, designed to persuade the river to
deposit sand and silt about them, and so create
a wall from its own store of material which will
accomplish the desired object.

These works of regularization on the Lower
Mississippi consist principally of two things : re-
vetment, or false bank protection ; dikes and
other silt-arresting devices for filling in undesir-
able channels. By the use of these and certain
accessories it is possible to obtain in this stretch
of the river twelve, fourteen, or even a consider-
ably greater depth at the lowest stage of the
river, and to guarantee its continuity.

The manner in which the minor bed of the
Mississippi winds to and fro across the major bed
has been already described. Within this minor
bed there is another groove, which crosses and
recrosses it even more frequently than the inter-
mediate groove crosses the valley. This is the
channel, an irregular cut, in which flows the
swiftest current of the river and in which travel

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

vessels using the stream. The current of the
lower river varies, in the channel, from about two
to about eight or nine miles an hour, the usual
flow being about three miles, and the maximum
attained only on the foreside of an advancing
flood wave of extreme height. If a stream of
water of that velocity be caused to flow down a
sloping wooden trough, if it is started perfectly
true down the centre and meets no obstruction,
it will flow evenly all the way. But if it be started
diagonally it will strike against one wall, and
there reflecting will cross and strike against the
other, and will continue this process as long as
it flows in the trough. Though all the trough
will be full of water, there will be distinctly
traceable this swift curving line across and back,
while in the nodes or places within the loops
there will be still or slowly moving water which
may be running upstream in an eddy if the outer
current be swift enough. If this water be filled
to its suspending point with silt, in a short time
it will build a typical river-bed for itself, deposit-
ing earthen material in the nodes until it is as
high, or nearly as high, as the water surface,

THE MINOR BED

spreading a thin flat layer of silt or sand in the
crossing where it goes from side to side, and
keeping the trough scoured clean in a narrow
strip where it impinges on the wall.

If the banks against which the river impinges
be made of earth instead of wood, the speed of
the water can be increased to a certain point
without disturbing them. When it has reached
such a speed that it becomes avid for silt, or
has attained an abrading force which the banks
cannot resist, it begins to eat them away, often
undermining the lower part so that the upper falls
in, and thus loading the river up with a new bur-
den. The swiftest part of the current of this arti-
ficial stream is the portion immediately proxi-
mate to the bank. It is this part which receives
and which can carry the burden. But as it ap-
proaches the crossing and the movement becomes
more generally distributed in a greater breadth
of water, this part no longer moves with such
speed, and it begins to drop the extra load. So
we shall see in our trough the crossings become
more shoal as the bends are torn out. More than
this, the tearing out of the bend bank alters the

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

shape of the stream. The current running out
of it is deflected at a new angle, and strikes into
the side of the next node above or below the
crossing. It there finds a bank unadapted to re-
ceive it, and again eats it away, tearing up also
enough of the bottom to form a new crossing
channel in this direction. This altering movement
will continue on downstream in a sort of wave,
and the whole channel will continue to shift and
change until the river has remained for a con-
siderable time at an even stage in regard both to
height and to speed, when gradually the banks
will become adapted and stable and the stream
will flow steadily in a true channel.

This condition of shifting channel, of moving
bars, and of caving banks, prevails continually
on the Lower Mississippi except in such places as
the engineers have had money with which to pre-
vent it. The main current sweeps with a mighty
rush around the outside of bend after bend, cross-
ing with less speed from the foot of one to the
head of the next, each bend being curved in the
opposite direction from that next above it. These
bends often remain stable for years ; and as often

AN ISLAND CHUTE, OPEN

A CLOSED CHUTE

THE MINOR BED

continue caving year after year, gradually reach-
ing back until the river has so lengthened its
slope in them that it is no longer able to erode
the bank. In this process of retreat it not infre-
quently happens that two bends — never contigu-
ous, but separated by at least one reverse bend —
approach each other, back to back, until either a
flood pouring over the bank or the caving through
of the last obstructing wall makes an opening
and creates a new channel. This is called a cut-
off. As there are usually eight to twenty miles of
channel around the loop from side to side of this
gap, and as the fall in that distance is from four
to eight feet, the flood which pours through the
new cut is naturally as destructive as that which
bursts through a levee crevasse. In a short time,
sometimes in five or ten minutes, the main chan-
nel of the river is pouring down through the gap
and only a sluggish flow is left around the old
bend.

Such a cut-off is a calamity not only for those
who dwell on the land and for those who live by
the now abandoned loop, but for rivermen as
well. In the immediate vicinity of the cut-off the

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

river has an increased current, due to having an
immensely steep slope in a few miles. This gives
it the ability to tear out its banks. It has, more-
over, entirely new direction of attack upon them.
Both above and below it shifts and alters, tears
out and builds up, and this process must continue
for several years, to the destruction of channels
and prohibition of any but the most hazardous
navigation, until the river has again restored its
condition of natural equilibrium; in which, at
ordinary stages, it has slope and current propor-
tioned to its bank material. Such a cut-off never
shortens the river even locally for more than
these few years, as the river must lengthen all its
adjacent bends to " take up the slack" before it
can settle down.

The interests of navigation, and equally of
those who own the land on the bank, and those
who live farther back but are protected by levees
which in turn depend upon the stability of the
bank, require that the bank in every bend shall
be made permanent. Years of experiment and
careful study of the river have developed an en-
tirely adequate method of attaining this end,

THE MINOR BED

known as " revetment." This process, as put to
use on the Lower Mississippi, where it is found
on a larger scale than anywhere else in the world,
consists in protecting1 the bank below low water
with a huge and continuous mattress woven of
brush and galvanized wire; and preserving the
bank above low water with a heavy facing of
stone, brick, or concrete. The development of
this process to its present stage has been one
of the greatest attainments of the army engi-
neers working under the direction of the Missis-
sippi River Commission ; and their success has
been so complete that the permanency of the mat-
tresses and the success of their operation are
now a mathematical certainty.

To be entirely and finally effective, however,
revetment must begin at a fixed point, where the
river cannot shift, and proceed thence down-
stream, regularly, no bend being omitted, so that
each may properly lead into the next below and
receive from the next above. Nowhere has this
yet been thoroughly attempted, as the investment
of the government has only been sufficient from
year to year to revet curves which were in especial

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

danger ; and as a result the works have been at-
tacked from above and from below by the river
and millions of dollars' worth have been swept
away. Nevertheless, in isolated bends along the
lower river there are now existing more than a
score of miles of such protection — out of a total
of 400 or 500 which will be eventually needed,
representing a present investment of about
$8,000,000.

When a bend is to be revetted, stakes are
driven along the shore on a line representing the
zero contour, that is, they stand on the line that
would be the water's edge at zero of the gauge,
or normal low water. Mooring piles are then
driven at the head of the bend, and to these are
attached a series of mooring barges, set out nor-
mally from the shore, end to end, as far as the
mattress is to extend. A common width on the
lower river is 300 feet. Parallel to these and
close below them are then moored an equal row
of weaving barges, equipped with launching ways
sloping toward the water upstream, and with
working platforms and coils of wire cable at the
head of the ways. Every bar and towhead of the

Photographed by Col. John A Ockerson,

WEAVING A FASCINE REVETMENT MATTRESS

AN EARLY TYPE OF WOVEN BRUSH REVETMENT

THE MINOR BED

lower river furnishes abundant slim willows and
cottonwoods, which spring up with amazing ra-
pidity and provide an ever ready supply of ma-
terial for the mattress weaver. These willows are
brought in bargeloads and delivered to the weav-
ing barges. Of large willow poles, and sometimes
of timbers, and heavy galvanized iron cables, a
"mat-head" is then woven, — a tightly wound
bundle sometimes two feet in diameter, — to which
are attached both temporary and permanent moor-
ing lines, the latter carried ashore and fastened
to sunken piling. This mat-head is lowered to
the water, the weaving barges being downstream
from it, and then the actual weaving is begun.
The willows are bound in fascines, or bundles,
usually in this river about one foot thick, the
trees being two to four inches thick at the butt
and about twenty feet long. They are laid with
broken joints, butt to butt, and each fascine is
lashed tightly to the mat-head or to the next
forward fascine by the wire weaving strands
which pass under two and over one, round and
round, including at each turn the longitudinal
cables which, uncoiling as the mat proceeds, are

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

carried the whole length of the mat to give it
strength.

In addition to these, diagonal strands are some-
times included in long mattresses ; and diagonal
tree braces are also used. Willow trees slightly
larger than those which make the fascines are
lashed longitudinally along the mat for stiffening,
and to form a hold for the ballast. As each strip
of mat is finished it is launched, and the weaving
barge drops aft, the completed part lying in an
unbroken carpet on the surface of the water. As
the size of the mat increases, the danger of losing
it in the current becomes greater, and it is seldom
they are made over 1000 feet long. The sinking
of them is also a period of great danger.

When the whole mat has been woven, perhaps
300 by 1000 feet in area, the mooring and weav-
ing barges are removed, and the whole lies afloat
held by the permanent wire moorings leading up-
stream from the mat-head and from several points
along its length. The mat is extremely closely
woven but very flexible. Barges loaded with rub-
ble stone are then brought alongside, — this stone
being obtained from riverside quarries on the

THE MINOR BED

Ohio and Upper Mississippi, — and the stone is
thrown upon them, or rather laid carefully along
what will be the upper side of the stiffening poles,
until the whole mat is evenly weighted and just
awash. Then more stone is brought down at the
head and thrown on until the mat-head sinks.
The current bears the stone barge down over the
mat, and as it advances the stone is thrown ahead,
sinking more of the mat. At this time a heavy
current may buckle and destroy the whole, so that
great care is necessary in manipulating the stone
barges. An hour to three hours is usually required
for putting the whole thing in place, where it lies
like a carpet, fitting the irregularities of the river
bottom, extending out well into the middle of the
channel. Such a mat, in place on the bottom, re-
presents an investment of about $19 a running
foot.

When this lower bank protection has been com-
pleted a hydraulic grader is brought into play, and
the upper bank is sloped away one on three, or a
total sloping face of about 120 feet width for the
average upper bank. When this has been graded
evenly it is covered to the depth of two or three

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

inches with a layer of quarry spawls, or small
chips of stone, and over this another thicker layer
of rubble is spread, making the whole about a
foot thick. Sometimes instead of this, however,
wooden scantling is laid in pens ten feet square,
and a layer of bricks laid in them, then covered
with a wire mesh, another layer of scantling put
on the pens, a thin cement thrown into mesh and
bricks, and a top layer of brick put in the upper
pen. Instead of this, again, sometimes single
pens are used, and these are filled with a concrete
made of cement and river bottom gravel, the
whole bound with a wire mesh. And another ex-
pedient is that of using this concrete as an arti-
ficial rubble to spread over the bank without the
pens. Each of these methods has been found use-
ful, the simple rubble being as yet the cheaper,
the others having increasing attractiveness for
the engineer as he advances downstream, farther
from his quarries. This upper bank protection
costs in the neighborhood of $10 a running foot,
making the whole cost of a revetted bend about
$29 or $30 a running foot, sometimes reaching
$35 ; but capable of being brought down, in

THE MINOR BED

systematic and large workings, to less than $25
a foot.

Eevetment of this character, though in smaller
streams less costly, is necessary in every bend of
every navigable river where there is danger of
the bank cutting out and endangering either the
channel or the levee. To become a successful car-
rier, a river must offer a channel as sure and
reliable as the roadbed of a first-class railroad. It
may not need as heavy or as broad revetment as
the Lower Mississippi — there are few rivers as
large and as deep as this to be so fixed. But from
the head of navigation on the Missouri to the
Jetties of Southwest Pass, and on all the princi-
pal tributaries, this must be the final resource in
such a case. On the Lower Mississippi this means,
•with a very few exceptions, the revetment of the
outside of every curve on the stream, in all a
total somewhere between 400 and 800 miles, part
on each side of the stream.

Revetment, however, is only one part of the
improvement of a river-bed by regularization. It
gives us a fixed shore for the stream at all points
against which the river impinges. Its immediate

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

influence is to cause the river at its foot to scour
deeper than it already is, a thing which is seldom
necessary on the lower river, where these bends
attain depths of more than 100 feet in the chan-
nel (below the lowest low water) even above
Memphis, and are generally at least 50 feet deep
below Cairo. Having these bends held with a firm
bank so that they discharge the current on a cer-
tain tangent toward the other bank, it is necessary
to contract and control that current in the cross-
ing which it then enters, that that also may be
dug deep by the stream. This is accomplished
by several kinds of construction, most of which
on the Lower Mississippi take the form of silt-
arresting devices, such as brush hurdles, abatis
dikes, and permeable fences, which check but
do not stop the stream.

The proper path of the main current over a
crossing having been determined, — by the use of
floats, and by sounding, the river itself deepening
the path which is easiest for it, — directing dikes
are built out from the shore on either side to
cause it to hold this course. On each side, or on
either side, hurdles are constructed extending

THE MINOR BED

straight out from the low-water bars into the cur-
rent, at short intervals. These dikes are built of
piling, well braced, and filled in with brush
weighed down with rubble. About the foot and
end of each is a foot-mattress, so called, woven of
brush, well ballasted, to prevent the river scouring
under them. Such a dike checks the flow of the
water just enough to cause silt to fill in below
and around it. If the dike is, or becomes, heavy
enough to prevent the flow and make an actual
head between the water above and that below it,
it is apt to "blow out" or scour, destroying its
usefulness. As a silt arrester, however, it builds
up the land around it, and these filled-in areas,
becoming contiguous, form a new shore line, hold-
ing the low-water current to a lesser surface so
that it necessarily scours the crossing deeper. In
some long and fairly straight reaches the current
is thus forced from one side for a considerable
distance over against a revetted bank opposite.

Abatis dikes, which were first used on the
Missouri, consist of a frame of piling and timbers,
set athwart the current in the part of the river
which it is desired to fill. Braced under the up-

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

stream timbering and over the downstream, so
that they slope downstream and upward at an
angle of about forty-five degrees, willows are set
thickly along the whole distance. The river runs
through them easily, but they slacken it enough
to retain its burden.

The aim of the Mississippi River Commission
has been to restrict the river below Cairo to a
fairly uniform width of 3500 feet. It has been
unable to do this, for lack of money, but in
certain regions it has expended large sums to this
end. When it took charge of the river in 1879,
there were two long-famous regions of extremely
shoal water, namely, at Plum Point and at Stack
Island. Plum Point is opposite the middle of the
St. Francis basin, and Stack Island, at Lake
Providence, is opposite the Yazoo. In each of
them the river, annually silted up at high water,
and annually seeking new crossings and channels
at low water, had eaten at both its banks till
they were from two to three miles apart, and the
intricate crossings in between were shoal and
blocked with continually shifting bars. Work in
Stack Island reach was soon abandoned for lack

AN ABATIS DIKE AT LOW WATER, MISSOURI RIVER

AN ABATIS DIKE AT HIGH WATER, MISSOURI RIVER

THE MINOR BED

of funds, and nearly all that had been done there
was lost; but by gradual work there has been
recovered nearly 1000 acres of land, built up by
silt-arresting devices, and a channel has been
established which, formerly three or four feet
deep at low water, is easily maintained by occa-
sional dredging to a depth of ten feet.

Plum Point reach, extending for sixty or
seventy miles along the river on the Tennessee
front, has always been the chief scene of the
activities of the commission. There by miles of
revetment, and by the use of hundreds of dikes
and silt-arresting structures of many kinds, they
have established a ten-foot channel easily main-
tained, and have shown the way to establish the
rest of the river in similar regularity.

Some years ago, by direction of Congress, the
commission began experimenting with dredges,
and developed large possibilities by means of
suction or hydraulic dredges, which pump up a
mixture of sand and water and discharge it
through long pipes, which either end in the slack
water behind a bar or distribute the surplus
material in some other out-of-the-way place. Al-

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

though a dredged channel is only a makeshift,
no final plan for river improvement having been
adopted, Congress later ordered revetment work
abandoned except where necessary to save a levee,
and has required the commission to build and
operate a large fleet of these hydraulics. They
are to be seen now, in every low-water season,
patrolling the river. When the river begins to
fall after a flood, the dredges are made ready.
When the stream still stands at ten or twelve feet
on the gauge, engineers are sent to those cross-
ings from which trouble is anticipated, and
soundings are made to show the trend of the
channel. If it appears to be cutting out properly
as the river drops, it is not necessary to dredge.
If, however, a second sounding shows that the
river is spreading too much, and not forming any
one distinct channel, the dredge is called for.
The engineer determines what appears to be the
proper line for a crossing, and the dredge runs
into this and makes a cut 200 or 250 feet wide
through it. If the crossing is well chosen the
river will at once adopt this new chute, and will
broaden and deepen it and continue to cut it as

THE MINOR BED

it drops. If it is unwisely chosen the river quickly
silts it up and tries to break out elsewhere, and
the engineer makes a new line and tries again.
Generally but one or two cuts are necessary to
establish a crossing, but sometimes three or four
have to be made. In an average season from four
to seven crossings have thus to be dredged be-
tween Cairo and New Orleans, to maintain a reg-
ular channel nine or ten feet in depth. In ad-
dition to the expense of maintaining a large fleet
and dredging local harbors, this requires the
annual expenditure of about $400,000. During
the years 1907 and 1908 an experimental chan-
nel 14 feet deep, at first 250 and later 500 feet
wide, has been maintained over a considerable
part of the lower river.

The Mississippi Eiver Commission has been in
existence since 1879. Before that date there
were some appropriations for snagging and gen-
eral river improvement ; but the following state-
ment, which shows the amount appropriated to
be spent by this body up to 1906, includes very
nearly everything which has been expended be-
tween Cairo, Illinois, and the Head of the Passes,

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

toward confining the Mississippi to a proper major
bed and making it develop a navigable chan-
nel in the minor bed. It must be considered in
large measure a tuition fee, by which we have
learned those things which it is necessary to do
to establish fourteen-foot navigation from Cairo
to the sea.

FINANCIAL STATEMENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER
COMMISSION, JUNE 30, 1906

Expenses and salaries $770,480.93

Surveys, gauges, and observations . . . 2,237,850.62

Levees 20,612,317.06

Revetment and contraction, permanent channel im-
provement and protection 11,256,650.37

Dredges and dredging 3,903,642.19

Experimental dikes 100,000.00

Plant and miscellaneous 2,542,357.08

Improving harbors and tributaries, except Vicksburg

harbor 6,370,469.01

Improving Vicksburg harbor 582,980.98

Works above Cairo 737,632.53

Total expended 49,114,380.77

Balance unexpended, June 30, 1906 .... 1,384,040.30
Allotments available and unallotted . . . 2,001,500.00

Total appropriated $52,499,921.07

In addition to the demands of navigation, the
complete revetment and final establishment of
the Mississippi and its tributaries is urged by the
necessity of preserving our valley soils. Where
its banks are unstable the river eats at them al-

100

THE MINOR BED

most continuously, sometimes traveling several
miles through a rich land, sideways, eating up
the old, rich accumulations of mould, and leav-
ing on the opposite side sand barrens which will
require years before they become productive. A
steamboat journey along the river discloses for
mile after mile the bank continually dropping,
dropping, here a lump, there a hatful of earth;
falling in, sometimes a yard or more, sometimes
half an acre or even an acre at a slice. Such land
is worth now, or would be if it had protection,
one hundred dollars an acre. It produces easily
that much in a year. In the future, as our country
fills, this rich soil will be of almost fabulous value,
and we cannot afford to allow it to be dissolved
and its best elements borne in suspension or so-
lution to the sea. In the end it will be this need
of soil conservation, almost or quite as much as
the need of channel definition and flood protec-
tion, which will force the complete revetment of
the banks.

CHAPTER VI
THE RIVER MOUTH

THE Mississippi discharges its waters and sed-
iment into the Gulf of Mexico by several
channels, through a true and typical delta. In a
channel averaging about one hundred and twenty-
five feet deep, but in many places exceeding one
hundred and fifty, between alluvial banks built
up of its own deposit, it approaches the sea with
a majesty and simple grandeur contrasting
strangely with the hurly-burly with which it tears
swiftly down its upper reaches. Unhindered by
bar or island for the last three hundred miles,
unfretted by snag or rock, rising and falling
but a small fraction of its up-river flood height, it
finds comfort in a bed which has not appreciably
changed in centuries. It continues thus to a point
more than one hundred miles below New Orleans.
Then, widening out from the half mile which has
been ample for the deep river, it shoals as it
widens, until, when its banks are something over

102

THE RIVER MOUTH

two miles apart, the depth of water is but little
more than thirty-five feet. At that point it divides
into three branches, which extend like the toes
of a duck over the map of the Gulf, narrow rib-
bons of water bordered by as narrow bands of
land, and webbed between with marshes and
shoals. These three branches are the main passes
of the Mississippi: Southwest, into which flows
about fifty per cent of the stream; South,
which obtains little more than ten per cent ; and
Pass a TOutre, into which flows the remainder.
These, in turn, branch before reaching the sea.
Southwest Pass, which is eighteen miles long,
has several minor bayous emptying from it into
the shallows. South Pass formerly gave one fifth
of its water to Grand Bayou, now closed by a
dam. A POutre divides into Southeast, North-
east, and many minor channels.

These Passes, as a rule, maintain an even width
and depth from " Head of the Passes/* where
they are formed, nearly to the Gulf. A TOutre,
starting with about twenty feet depth, shoals as
it divides. South Pass, before the construction of
the Eads Jetties, was blocked at the head by a

103

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

seventeen-foot shoal, but below that retained a
depth of about forty feet to its mouth, where,
spreading out like both the others, it was blocked
by a bar having but seven feet of water. South-
west retains a width of a third of a mile and a
depth of from forty to fifty feet almost to the
land's end, and there, widening as it comes to the
Gulf, is fronted by a bar over which the natural
depth of water has varied from eight to eighteen
feet, and in the "palmy" days of clipper ships,
when this was the great river mouth, was about
sixteen.

Each of these Passes is flanked by soft but
fairly stable banks of alluvion, on which grow
grass and rushes and wild rice, and, in many parts,
dense cane brakes and willow thickets. The off-
channel banks are horrid with tangles of stumps
and trees brought down by the current, but the
channel side is usually well rounded and even.
To the eye the Pass, away from its mouth and
head, appears like a huge ship canal ; and this, in
fact, under the treatment of the engineer, is ex-
actly what each becomes. The low-lying banks
do not conceal from the traveler on the deck of

104

THE RIVER MOUTH

a vessel the marshes and the sea itself on every
side ; and from a masthead the whole delta forma-
tion is plainly visible. But from the surface of
the water one sees ahead and astern a placid river,
ending in a hazy mirage in which odd clumps of
willows take grotesque shapes, and imaginary
castles and houses mysteriously appear ; while the
banks themselves present impenetrable thickets
of rush and cane and willow, which for all the
eye can see might extend to the world's end.

Not all the water of the Mississippi finds its
way to Head of the Passes. From the Red River
to the sea there are many bayous, through which
flood waters now discharge, or formerly did do so.
The Atchafalaya itself, sometimes considered the
former mouth of the Red, once took a large por-
tion of the Mississippi's surplus to the Gulf, and
still does receive a considerable part. Plaquemine
and La Fourche have been closed up by locks so
that the land along them shall not be inundated
by the big river, and Manchac and others have
been similarly treated. Bonnet Carre, where, in
1850, the river broke its bounds to pour, in an
enormous yellow flood, into Lake Pontchartrain,

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REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

shows now an uninterrupted levee. But below
New Orleans, as one nears Head of the Passes,
there are still open channels. One of these, called
the Jump, leads to a bayou, a route through which
smugglers once made their way to Baratarian
fastnesses, and by which fishermen and oyster
dredgers still lead then* luggers. The Jump is a
civilized place now. The levee leads quite to its
margin, there but a low-lying earthen ridge. Back
of the levee are cottages, and back of them again
orange and pomola trees, which bear rich burden.
A little pier makes out, on which the crated fruit
awaits the gasoliner. Perched on stilts across the
Jump from the landing stands the deserted cus-
tom-house of early days; and beyond that no-
thing but the still untroubled jungle of the upper
Delta, without levee or habitation. Not much
water goes out this way now, though at one time
there was a channel twenty feet deep into the
bayou, and during the years of Captain Eads's
work his steamboats entered here daily for wil-
lows.

On the other side of the river, not far below,
opens a second, larger, and more picturesque es-

106

THE RIVER MOUTH

cape, called Cubitt's Gap, an old crevasse through
which once much water went into Breton Sound,
but which is now shoal and taking but little.
This and the Jump, and "Batiste Collet's Ca-
nal," however, are but minor affairs. The bulk
of the river comes down to the broadening at
Head of the Passes, and flows out through the
three great outlets.

To find a navigable route through this Delta
to the sea was one of the great engineering prob-
lems of the nineteenth century. Upon its solution
depended the commercial future of the entire
central valley ; and in the history of American
engineering there is no more prolonged strug-
gle between different interests, no more dramatic
staging of the final action, than the opening of
South Pass to navigation by James B. Eads.

In the old French days, Pass a T Outre was,
as its name indicates, the outlet channel for ship-
ping. At its mouth was built a little village on
stilts, with a blockhouse and pilot station, to
which was given the name Balise ; in the litera-
ture of fifty years ago a word synonymous with
Louisiana, New Orleans, and the Delta. " Bound

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REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

for the Balise " was a current expression for all
craft running to the Great Water, and in all
river reference the word was as commonly sig-
nificant of the actual mouth as Port Eads has
been for the past thirty years.

In the old days the depth of water on the bar
at the Balise varied from ten to fourteen or fif-
teen feet, sometimes even going deeper, and
offering safe channel to the shallow craft in
which the French and Spanish came to Louisiana.
It was enough for the British gunboats which
came to bombard Fort St. Philip in 1814-15,
and it offered a good route for Captain Shreve
in the steamboat Enterprise when he carried the
British prisoners out to exchange them for our
men on the fleet. But during the first half of the
century it gradually shoaled, and that at South-
west Pass gradually deepened until the latter be-
came, for the clipper ships, the only route. The
pilots transferred their homes from the Balise to
a little bayou running out from Southwest near
its mouth, and soon a picturesque village, with a
water street fifty feet wide, and bordered with
palm trees and roses, came to be known as Pilot

108

THE RIVER MOUTH

Town. Over Southwest Pass bar went nearly all
ships into and out of the Mississippi until the
summer of 1877, and in the years of its use oc-
curred some of the most memorable chapters of
river history.

It was the custom then to carry cotton to
Europe in swift-flying clipper ships, with sharp
bottoms and projecting keels. These vessels were
loaded with cotton frequently to a depth of
eighteen feet, when it was well known that there
was on the bar but sixteen feet of water at the
highest tide. They left New Orleans in fleets
drawn by big sidewheel tugs, and as they ap-
proached the bar were picked up by other tugs
and pilots. These pilots sounded the bar daily,
and were familiar with every spot in it, with the
shifting of the current due to wind and tide and
flood, with the accompanying changes in the
bottom, and with every slightest sign of the
moving of the channel. One of them, put in
charge of a big clipper drawing two feet more
than the channel held, would charge full speed
at what he had determined was the "softest"
spot. If good luck favored him he would find a

109

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

yielding bottom through which the thin keel of
the ship would plough with ease, aided and borne
on by the steady current. But if some mischance
befell he would find hard sand, through which he
might be able to go with a single tide, or need
two or three tides, or, as happened in at least one
case, spend three months or more in moving the
ship across the narrow strip into deep water.

For a time, when there was keen towboat and
pilot competition, steamboat captains would con-
tract to pull a vessel across the bar, and must
therefore stick to it day after day until she was
across. Later, however, came a period of con-
solidation, the formation of the Towboat Com-
pany, and the establishment of a tremendously
high towage rate per hour. Under this new rule,
not only was a vessel compelled to pay for each
hour she was towed, but additional for each boat
that pulled her. Stranding for a day or two be-
came very expensive. In spite of the enormously
high freights on cotton, ships sought other ports,
and those which had to use the Mississippi often
attempted the bar without towing.

To meet this last resort, the Towboat Company
110

THE RIVER MOUTH

established a rule that no boat which attempted
to go through without a tug, and stuck, should
thereafter be helped off the bar by a steam tow-
boat; and as a natural result of this rule, there
began to occur frequent blockades of commerce,
occasioned by some rash ship sticking in the best
channel and holding every other boat up till she
worked herself free.

Ships bound out often were able to work through
what seemed impassable mud barriers, aided by
the current which, flowing along their sides, chan-
neled a way for them. Such an adventure befell
in 1837, and is described in a letter from John
Kershaw, Jr., to Samuel J. Peters, then president
of the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce: —

"A ship drawing seventeen and one half feet
forward and aft struck the bar of Southwest Pass
in the true channel way; with the aid of her sails,
kedge anchors, etc., she gradually prized ahead,
and on the fourth day, to the consternation of
those on board, it was found, she had only eight
feet of water under her bow, whilst she had eight-
een under her counter; however, by persevering
in kedging, the use of her sails, and with the

111

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

aid of the current, she finally, on or about the
twelfth day, carried before her this mass of mud,
and drifted into deep water."

Notwithstanding the handicap which such ad-
ventures placed upon the commerce of New Or-
leans, the presence of cotton there, brought down
in quantities by river steamboats, tempted vessels
to risk the Pass. In February, 1859, when the trade
of the city, so soon to be annihilated by the war,
was at zenith, the export merchandise held up by
grounding on the Southwest Pass bar was worth
$5,367,339, including 72,000 bales of cotton,
and not counting the value of the hulls; while im-
port goods detained at the same time were worth
$2,000,000. In the succeeding month there were
thirty-five vessels inside trying to go out, and sev-
enteen outside waiting to come in, while three,
stuck in the fairway, blocked the channel. In
the years from 1872-77 more than four hundred
vessels were grounded there, and lost a total of
almost a year and a half, — to be exact, 12,467
hours.1

"If you will come to New Orleans and go to the

1 E. L. Corthell, The Jetties.

112

THE RIVER MOUTH

mouth of the 'river/" said General Bussey of that
city, to a congressional convention in St. Louis in
1873, " I will show you a vessel drawing but eight-
een feet of water which has been lying there for
the last three weeks, with corn on board worth
forty-two to forty-five cents in currency, and
then you will know why it is the farmers of Iowa,
Illinois, and Missouri are impoverished and with-
out money to pay their taxes."

"Two years ago," said John H, Kennard of
Louisiana, following him, "I left New Orleans
with a depth of water on the bar exceeding twenty
feet, and, during the sitting of the convention
that week I went to attend, a single storm filled
up the passage four feet in a night, leaving but
sixteen feet and a fraction.

" Only ten days ago, by order of the Secretary
of War, I with a number of other gentlemen of
New Orleans spent three days and three nights
making a critical survey of this very ground.
When we arrived at Southwest Pass there were
lying thirty odd of the largest class of ships, re-
presenting almost every country of Europe, among
which were some six or seven fine steamers. I con-

113

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

versed with captains of almost all. At the lowest
calculation there were then floating in the mouth
of that bar over $8,000,000 worth of property.

"We have a powerful corporation," he con-
tinued, speaking bitterly, " the Towboat Associa-
tion, and they do not hold fasting and prayer
when they hear a ship has stuck on the bar. They
charge an enormous sum per ton for bringing
these boats from the mouth to New Orleans, and
in addition when these vessels get, as we saw
those I spoke of, on the bar, they charge only
$100 an hour for each boat that pulls -at it, —
and I am told they are very particular not to
put too many on to begin with. In this case the
steamship Bienville, running without a pilot,
began the blockade, and when they do this tow-
boats will not help them."

Next only to the Civil War, no other single
influence had more effect in shaping the devel-
opment of the transportation routes of the inte-
rior of America than this mass of mud across the
mouth of the Mississippi. Had the channel into
the Gulf deepened progressively as the depths of
ocean vessels increased, the interior states would

114

THE KIVER MOUTH

have found this, their natural outlet to the sea,
as sufficient for them in 1880 as it was in 1830.
The railways as they came would have followed
the main line of traffic, to New Orleans, or would
have run east and west from the river as feeders ;
and the people of a prosperous valley would have
demanded that the money which was really spent
by the government on the construction of rail-
ways to bear their freights to the coast, should
be spent on the development of these natural
carriers for the same purpose. The traffic which
would have resulted would have been north and
south, its natural direction, rather than east and
west. The depot for receiving imports and dis-
tributing them through the valley would not have
been separated from the consumers by a moun-
tain range ; and the Eastern States, and especially
New York, would never have attained that grasp
on the business of the country which its rail-
way power has given it. No corporation would
have been able, as have certain railway interests
in recent years, to monopolize the way to the sea
by locking up the rail entrances to Manhattan,
to Boston, to Philadelphia, and all the north east-

115

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

era tide-water. On the contrary, the very move-
ment of cotton must have been more to the north
via the lakes, to return value for grain ; and the
manufacturing centres of the upper valley must
have found, that much the earlier, their eventual
outlet through New Orleans to the Caribbean. All
this must have been, and was not ; for before the
Mississippi was open to the sea, in 1877, the fed-
eral government had already given two hundred
million acres of the public lands, and, in bonds
and interest, $90,000,000 of public funds, to aid
the construction of privately owned railroads to
do the work that the public-owned rivers should
have done.

This was not owing to sluggishness on the part
of New Orleans or the West in making known
their needs. Almost from the first day of Ameri-
can occupancy there had been foreseen the coming
of the day when the channel would not suffice.
Jetties were discussed and recommended by New
Orleans business men as early as 1837. Later the
plan of constructing a canal which would allow
ships to come near the city without encountering
the swift river current — a severe obstacle to sail-

116

THE RIVER MOUTH

ing vessels — became a favorite one, and the many
bayous of lower Louisiana lent it attractiveness.
The route through Lake Pontchartrain was only
sufficient for small schooners, such as use it to-
day ; but there were other available routes, both
east and west of the Delta.

Of these the favorite from the first was one by
way of Breton Sound, connecting with the Missis-
sippi by a canal near Fort St. Philip, seventy
miles below New Orleans. Very few in the Cres-
cent City, even as late as 1870, believed that the
Mississippi's mouth could be kept clear; and this
other route, avoiding the Passes and cutting off
thirty miles or more of the river approach to the
city, stood well in popular favor. As early as 1832
Major Boisson, a distinguished engineer of New
Orleans, made a detailed survey over the route,
and estimated that a channel sufficient for all that
seemed apt to come that way could be constructed
for $5,000,000. A united demand was made for
this sum on Congress by the western, or rather
valley, members, but it was finally adjudged too
costly and was not undertaken.

When, in 1851, Major Humphreys began his
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REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

survey of the river, he also turned his attention
to this project and conceived a liking for it, which
two decades later led him, as Chief of the Corps
of Engineers of the War Department, to one of
the bitterest contests in river history. Still later,
when, the war being over and the valley slowly
recovering from the loss of trade, Congress saw
fit to listen to the demand for a navigable outlet,
the route was even more carefully surveyed by a
government party, and a cost of about ten million
dollars was estimated for the proposed canal.

The project in outline was to cut through the
river bank at Fort St. Philip, and thence directly
through the soft alluvion to the Sound, a distance
of four miles. This cut was to be about twenty-
seven feet deep and one hundred and fifty wide,
and was to have entrance from the river through
a massive stone lock large enough for the largest
ships, and seven feet high, enough at that point
to be above the highest floods of the Mississippi.
The canal was to be flanked with levees, and
protected from the Gulf by guard gates, and at
its sea end would be extended by dredging twelve
miles or more to deep water. There was then,

118

THE RIVER MOUTH

and there is now, no doubt that such a canal, if it
could be maintained, would be the shorter and
easier route for vessels between the sea and New
Orleans. It would have, however, certain difficul-
ties. Of these the first was the unstable nature
of the soil, which would possibly not support the
lock. The second was the habit of the river of
depositing silt in every eddy, so that unavoid-
ably the entrance to the lock would require con-
stant dredging to keep clear, as would the lock
and canal themselves. And the canal would be
rendered temporarily useless by any wind which
raised the level of the Gulf above the river.
The freaky character of the river was a con-
stant objection, for, though it seldom disturbs its
banks so near its mouth, it might at any day
swallow the lock and all, and having thus cut
away the obstacle might find the thirty-foot chan-
nel to Breton Sound an easy way of going into
the Gulf. This last was the real objection which
gave them halt, for the people of the valley were
too familiar with river habits to doubt that it
could, if it took the notion, cut up all manner of
tricks with any stone lock that could be built.

119

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

Nevertheless, General Humphreys continued
to urge, and to he supported in urging by nearly
all New Orleans, the opening of this canal. In
common with other army engineers he had studied
the jetty systems used abroad, and in particular
that of the Sulina mouth of the Danube, the
stream which, in sediment borne, in current, in
mouth, most nearly of all in Europe resembled
the Mississippi. At the mouth of the Sulina par-
allel piers of masonry had been extended through
the bar to deep water. The current contracted
in these had scoured its bed to navigable depth,
and most of the silt thereafter carried out was
swept away by a cross current in the sea.

In his investigation of the Mississippi Hum-
phreys had been led to believe that there was
carried out to sea by it, not only the mass of
material which it holds in suspension, but also a
great amount of gravel and coarse matter which
is rolled along the bottom. This bottom material,
he believed, was dropped over the edge of the
bar in such a quantity that it would extend the
bar out three hundred feet or so each year. He
believed that the river, flowing out upon a bed

120

THE RIVER MOUTH

of salt water beyond the bar, left under itself a
" dead angle " of salt water, in which there was
no current either way, and into this not only the
rolled matter but the sediment would instantly
drop and accumulate, if it were not allowed to
drop on the bar itself. On this account he be-
lieved the jetties would require millions in exten-
sion each year, and would never be satisfactory,
even if they could be constructed and maintained,
which he did not admit, or could scour a channel,
which he denied.

To confute these theories held by General
Humphreys, came forward James Buchanan Eads,
the man of all men most likely to stir up opposi-
tion in an army engineer. In the first place he was
not only a civilian, he was not even a schooled
man, having learned what he knew from books
borrowed in boyhood from his employer, and
later bought as he needed them from his earn-
ings. He had constructed at St. Louis a bridge
that older engineers had said could not be built,
by methods which they had asserted would not
work. He was a daring, clear-headed, practical
man of large experience in engineering work,

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REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

a pioneer adventurer by nature, whose enter-
prise led him into many lands, and who had the
courage to attempt of his own initiative what-
ever, regardless of precedent, practical sense told
him could be done. He had spent almost a life-
time on the river, and had walked in his diving
bell over nearly every foot of the bed from
Vicksburg to St. Louis, examining and salving
wrecks. He had devoted himself to the subject
of erosion, and had determined to his own sat-
isfaction that the power of a river to bear sed-
iment in suspension was a function of the cur-
rent, and varied somewhat with the depth. From
all his studies and from his knowledge of the
river, Eads believed that jetties could and should
be built. He pointed out that the canal, if con-
structed, would be soon outgrown, that it would
require slow passage, and that when ships became
numerous it would perhaps detain them hours or
days, waiting their turn through. A slight acci-
dent to the gate would put it out of commission.
On the other hand, once open a pass to deep
navigation, and every vessel could come through
at full speed, without delay. It could be done,

122

THE RIVER MOUTH

he said, and if done would be the only satisfac-
tory solution.

Accordingly, in February, 1874, Mr. Eads
made a formal proposition to Congress by the
terms of which he agreed, if permitted, to open
Southwest Pass to navigation at his own risk, to
be paid only when he had succeeded in accom-
plishing this so-called impossible feat. He guar-
anteed to establish a channel twenty-eight feet
deep through Southwest Pass into the Gulf of
Mexico, for ten million dollars. Of this sum he
was to be paid the first $1,000,000 when he had
deepened the way through the bar to twenty feet,
and an additional $1,000,000 for each additional
two feet, until when he had secured a twenty-eight-
foot channel he would have received $5,000,000.
The remaining $5,000,000 was to be withheld
and paid to him in annual installments of
$500,000, to guarantee the maintenance of the
full channel depth for ten years.

No fairer proposition was ever made to our
government than this. That it was made by Cap-
tain Eads out of love for the river itself, and for
the country which demanded the outlet, rather

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REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

than from hope of great profit, there can be no
doubt; for the estimate of cost of the Southwest
Pass jetties, presented to Congress by a board
of engineers convened for that purpose, was
$16,000,000. Nevertheless, Eads's perfectly safe
offer called forth immediate and most bitter oppo-
sition.

To understand this, and the subsequent fate
of the Eads plans, one must have a comprehen-
sive realization of the situation in New Orleans
at that time.

In the first place river traffic, which had reached
its greatest prosperity just at the opening of the
war, at a time when Western railway building
was in its infancy, sprang to life again in 1865,
to find that the five intervening years had seen
railways and the railway spirit advance with re-
markable speed, while the river had been allowed
to go to the dogs. There had never been much
done by the federal government to improve the
channel. Snags had now accumulated unchecked
for years, the bars had shoaled, the levees were
gone, the banks were untended, the river was a
chaos. Navigation under the circumstances was

124

THE RIVER MOUTH

perilous and costly. At the same time the West-
ern country was filling up with enormous rapidity,
the crops to be moved were every year becoming
heavier, and the demand for an outlet to the sea-
board louder and louder. Kiver boats were haul-
ing grain for export nearer and nearer to the
actual cost, yet seeing more and more of it go
eastward by rail, because the big steamships run-
ning out of New York could carry it to Liver-
pool so much more cheaply than those which
struggled through the bar at the mouth of the
Mississippi. The typical river-man of those days
— and of to-day — is no great believer in en-
gineering control of the channel. " Take out the
snags and dredge it on the bars," he says, " and
we will get along as well as we can. You can't
control the Mississippi."

That was his view with regard to the part of
the river on which he sailed, and it was his view
in the matter of the Passes. " You can't control
them," river-men almost unanimously asserted.
But the outlet to the sea must be opened, so that
by reducing the ocean freights to a parity with
those from New York the river could claim its

125

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

trade. An outlet for the deepest ships there must
be. But as it was impossible to control the Missis-
sippi at its mouth, this outlet must be a ship
canal, open at all times and free from current.
So tremendous was the feeling on this point, that,
when there seemed likelihood of the Eads pro-
posal being accepted, the following extraordinary
appeal was sent from New Orleans to Congress : 1

" Would you, can you, honorable Senators, at
such a moment, contemplate or tolerate the half-
insane proposition of strangers, who can know
nothing of the habits of our inexorable enemy,
to dam up his waters at the mouth by jetties or
wing-dams, that must inevitably send back the
flood waters like a tide to the very city of New
Orleans, or beyond, and complete the impending
destruction? Of this result we assure you, with
an earnestness ground into us by a lifelong ex-
perience and observation, and by all the lights
that science and professional investigation are
capable of lending us. Do not, we pray, permit
us to be destroyed, and that without remedy."

Under such pressure the Eads bill, reported

1 E. L. Corthell, The Jetties.

126

THE RIVER MOUTH

favorably by committee, was set aside in the
House, and a bill authorizing the immediate ap-
propriation of $8,000,000 to begin the St. Philip
Canal was passed instead. But in the Senate the
straightforward presentation of the case by Cap-
tain Eads had more effect, and the whole matter
was laid over until a specially appointed commit-
tee could report. This commission, consisting of
seven engineers, three from the army, three from
civil life, and one from the Coast Survey, visited
all the principal river jetties of Europe, and went
thoroughly into that subject as well as making
an exhaustive study at the mouth of the Mis-
sissippi. It reported three plans for solution
(report presented to Congress, January 13, 1875).
The Fort St. Philip Canal, to be 27 feet deep,
200 feet wide, and with a lock 500 feet long and
65 feet wide, would cost $11,514,200. Jetties at
South Pass would cost $7,942,110, and jetties
at Southwest Pass would cost $16,053,124. Of
these they recommended the jetties at South
Pass, on the ground that they would cost less,
could be constructed without disturbing the ex-
isting channel at Southwest Pass, or otherwise

127

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

interfering with navigation, and could be built
more quickly. They recommended that, whatever
plan was adopted, the whole sum be made im-
mediately available, so that the work could be
pushed forward to completion as quickly as pos-
sible.

With the recommendation for South Pass Mr.
Eads did not agree. He protested to Congress
that the work there would be more difficult, be-
cause of the shoal at the head of the Pass, which
would require work at that end as well as at the
mouth. Moreover, so little water went out there
that he doubted the sufficiency of it to maintain
a thirty-foot channel, which was the required
depth. It was certain to become eventually in-
sufficient for the commerce of the valley. South-
west Pass, big, abundant, the natural outlet,
appealed to him as the only sufficient one. Ac-
cordingly he made a new proposition to Congress,
that he would build the jetties at Southwest Pass
for $8,000,000, and would maintain them for
twenty years at an annual cost of $150,000 (the
commission had reported that the annual exten-
sion to keep in advance of the bar would cost

128

THE RIVER MOUTH

$130,000). So completely had public sentiment
changed throughout the country by this time,
that a bill embodying the Eads proposition for
the Southwest Pass went through the House with
but two dissenting votes. When it came to the
Senate, however, that body — considering that it
had appointed two separate commissions, and that
one had recommended the Canal and one the
South Pass jetties — decided that if it ignored
both and voted for Southwest Pass, and there
was then a failure, the country would be right-
eously indignant. It accordingly amended the
bill to refer to South Pass. Mr. Eads was in-
formed that if he would build the jetties there
for $5,250,000, and maintain them twenty years
at $100,000 a year, he could have the job. And
this he was compelled to accept. The bill was
passed by the House on March 3, 1875, and was
immediately signed by the President. The bill
was without doubt the " safest " ever passed by
the American Congress. It provided that so long
as he did not interfere with traffic, in an unnav-
igable channel, or delay unnecessarily, Captain
Eads might construct the jetties at his own risk

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REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

and expense. When he had deepened the channel
to be twenty feet deep for a width of two hun-
dred feet, he should be paid five hundred thou-
sand dollars. Another two feet would bring a like
amount. Two feet more and fifty feet wider
should bring him a similar sum, and if maintained
a year, $250,000 additional. A twenty-six-foot
channel, 300 feet wide, would bring another half
million, and a year later, if maintained, $250,000.
A twenty-eight-foot channel, 300 feet wide, would
be ground for another similar payment, and for
a channel 30 by 350, half a million at once and
another half million at the end of a year of main-
tenance, a total of $4,250,000. Thereafter Cap-
tain Eads should maintain the channel at that pro-
portion by jetties and auxiliary means for twenty
years, for which he was allowed $100,000 a year,
and during that time the government held up as
guarantee the remainder due him, $1,000,000,
paying him five per cent per annum semiannually,
and paying $500,000 at the end of ten years
and the other $500,000 at the end of the twenty
if all went well.

It is, of course, perfectly evident that no man
130

THE RIVER MOUTH

not absolutely sure of himself would have under-
taken the task on such a contract ; it is equally
certain that no man with less enthusiasm for the
work than Eads could have impressed its pos-
sibility upon others, and secured the funds to
finance what was considered by many engineers
to be an impossible plan. Nevertheless, Eads at
once signed a contract with the great firm of
James Andrews & Company to begin the actual
construction, they agreeing to furnish the neces-
sary quarter-boats, floating and fixed plants and
material, and not to ask for the first payment
until 50,000 cubic yards of mat and 10,000 cubic
yards of stone were put in place. They would
then receive half the agreed price for that work,
the rest to be paid when Congress had made
certain payments to Eads. The firm charged
such prices for the risk that the contract was
made only to a twenty-six-foot depth of channel.
To provide the money and push the work, Mr.
Eads organized the South Pass Jetty Company,
a purely financial corporation, which agreed to
furnish $200,000 as needed, on which it required
to be guaranteed ten per cent interest and one

131

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

hundred per cent profit. Additional sums o£
money as needed from time to time were raised
at equal or even more exorbitant rates.

It is extremely difficult for one unfamiliar with
the delta country to picture South Pass, as it is
now or as it was when Eads took charge of it, in
June, 1875. Within ten miles of the lighthouse
at its mouth there was not a building of any
sort except a few fishermen's shanties. Within
one hundred miles there was not a foot of ground
which was not at some time subject to overflow
from river or Gulf. Standing in the top of the
lighthouse one could follow to the northward the
gentle curves of the canal-like pass, between its
willow-clad marshy banks, to the point where it
merged with Pass a T Outre and Southwest Pass,
coming in, in like willow-bordered ribbons, from
equal angles to the east and west. It was a nat-
ural ship canal, and in its whole ten miles of
length was not a shoal spot, a sharp turn, a dan-
gerous bank, nor a snag.1

Small as it appeared in comparison with the
larger passes, each of which has five times its

1 E. L. Corthell, The Jetties.
132

THE RIVER MOUTH

volume o£ water, it would anywhere else be con-
sidered a magnificent river. The average width
of the Pass, which Eads hoped to preserve, was
about 700 feet, and the depth, except at the
ends, nowhere less than 30 feet ; but as he be-
lieved the erosive action of the tides would be
considerable, he planned to put the jetties a
thousand feet apart. Halfway its length the right
bank of the Pass was broken by the opening of
Grand Bayou, by which a fifth of its water was
discharged into a bay to the west of the Pass. In
its centuries of formation and flowing South Pass
had, in most of its length, exactly shaped its cross
section for the amount of water it carried. This
cross section permitted it to bear to its mouth the
burden of silt which was its share. At the end
of its banks, however, it met a littoral current
setting toward the west, in conflict with which,
and in consequence of its arrival at sea level, it
dropped its burden ; which, by the current and
the waves and winds, was piled up about its
mouth, more on the right than on the left of it.
This accumulating mass formed a bar over which
the river spread out, and year by year more and

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REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

more of the bar was raised above water by the
addition of silt. These parts thus raised were at
the sides of the stream, and formed natural ex-
tensions of the Pass, continuing to encroach until
they so narrowed the pass between them as to
form a cross section equal to that above. When
that stage was reached, the current had eroded
the bar between these two extensions (the actions
were simultaneous) to its full depth, making a
complete extension of the canal, and, by carrying
this eroded material seaward, continually shoving
the bar farther to sea. This was, in fact, the
process of delta building which had been going
on for countless centuries, the river keeping just
ahead of it a bar, of which it made more land
and through which as it did so it extended its
length. The plan of Major Eads, and practically
the whole plan, was to anticipate part of the
action of the river, and make the river do the
rest. He would build artificial banks, beginning
where those of the Pass had reached stability
and carrying them out to the far edge of the
bar; these would so narrow the river that it
would forthwith scour a thirty-foot channel

134

THE RIVER MOUTH

through the bar. Even most of his opponents
admitted the feasibility of this, but they asserted
that the material so eroded, with what was regu-
larly brought down by the stream, would build
the bar up at the seaward end faster than the
jetties could be extended ; while Eads maintained
that the littoral current would move this away
fast enough to keep the channel clear with a
minimum of dredging and extension.

The Jetties, or artificial banks, with which he
planned to do the work, were to a certain extent
modeled after those at the Sulina Pass of the
Danube, but were much modified to meet the
requirements of the situation. They were to be of
the simplest construction. Mattresses of willow . /
brush, gathered from the abundant thickets along
the Pass, Grand Bayou, and the river, were to be
woven on ways built at the spot, towed into the
line surveyed for the walls, and sunk by rubble
stone. Over these more mats would be sunk, as
the whole settled into the silt, until a stable foun-
dation had been made which held its crest above
water line ; and on this a concrete or stone wall
would be established. The east jetty, as surveyed,

135

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

extended from the land's end 1200 feet south-
easterly, then deflected to the west, one foot in
23 for 2800 feet, then one foot in 16 for 4100
feet. There a curve commenced, still to the west-
erly, with a radius of 11,720 feet in chords of six
hundred feet to make a total length of 12,100
feet, or nearly 2^ miles. The land on the west
side of the Pass extended farther seaward, and
the jetty on that side, paralleling the curved part
of the east jetty, was only about two thirds as
long.

Most of the willows for the mats were brought
from the bayous opening from the " Jump "
channel above Head of the Passes. The mats
themselves were woven on launching ways erected
for the purpose on the east shore of the Pass
near its end. Each mat was 100 feet long, and
the lowest in the foundation were 40 feet wide.
These were founded upon a framing of yellow-
pine timber, 2.5 by 6-inch scantlings, spliced to
full length, running lengthwise the mat and
spaced five feet between centres. Hickory pins
were wedged and trenailed into these strips so as
to stand upright when in weaving position. The

136

PEGGING AND FINISHING A MAT

MAKING A JETTY FOUNDATION MATTRESS

THE RIVER MOUTH

willow brush, fifteen to thirty feet in length, was
then brought and laid upon these strips at right
angles with them, the brushy tops overhanging
the frame about three feet. This layer was made
about sixteen inches deep, and then a second
layer at right angles put over it, three inches
above the tops of the pins. Cross strips similar to
those running longitudinally in the bottom were
then set over the brush, with holes bored for the
hickory pins, and forced down upon them and the
pins wedged in place. The whole was strength-
ened by longitudinal bracing. At the corners of
exposed mats additional iron screwbolts were used
as well as pins. The whole .was then launched.
Mooring piles marked the line of the jetty, and
the end of the last sunk mat was also marked.
The new one was towed into place and sunk in the
manner described in the chapter on bank revet-
ment, by throwing on stone from a barge. It was
possible to make a mattress 100 by 35 by 2 feet
in two hours. The method and type of making
were the invention of Colonel Andrews and Mr.
Eads, and were patented by them. A great part
of the credit of the jetties is due to this type ;

137

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

for this simplicity and ease and cheapness of con-
struction made possible the carrying out of the
great contract.

It is not necessary in a work of this character
to go into a full technical description of the pro-
gress of this work. At the end of the first year
the jetty walls were simply uncompressed walls of
willow mattresses, but when the river rose in
January, 1876, the flood, finding its way to the
sea obstructed, attacked the bar with great vigor,
deepening the centre line of channel most of the
way to twenty feet or more, and at the outer end,
where there had been but nine feet of water,
diminished in October, 1875, to 7.5 feet, it scoured
to seventeen feet.

So rapidly was this work accomplished that
Mr. Eads was able to celebrate the first anniver-
sary of the passing of his enabling act by send-
ing a ship to sea through the new channel. On
March 4, 1876, the Mattie Atwood, a three-
masted schooner carrying 2150 bales of cotton
for Revel, Russia, went to sea through South
Pass, drawing 13J feet of water.

A few weeks later Captain E. V. Gager and
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THE RIVER MOUTH

Pilot Richard Francis brought in through the
new channel, without touching bottom, the Crom-
well line passenger steamer Hudson, from New
York, passing in at low tide on a draft of four-
teen feet, seven inches. From that time on, though
there were difficulties, the progress of the build-
ing was looked upon with confidence by shipping
interests.

The willow walls which were erected as pro-
longations of the Pass settled gradually into the
soft bottom, and were covered by more mattresses,
and at last upon the top of all a great wall of
concrete blocks was built, the usual formula being
3 parts cement, 3 parts sand, 3 parts gravel, 15
parts broken stone, the heaviest single blocks
weighing over 260 tons. The concrete work on
the east jetty extended about one mile, and that
on the west half a mile, at the sea end. The mats
back of them were compressed with rubble stone.
While this work was being carried on at the
mouth of South Pass the engineers and contract-
ors had been equally busy at the head of the
Pass and at Grand Bayou. The latter was closed
\l by an ingenious dam, composed of a framing of

139

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

stout piling and heavy timbers, against which
were placed willow mattresses not unlike those
used for the foundation of the jetties. These
were, however, woven loosely, framed stoutly,
and made in small sections. Floated to the site
of the dam, one edge of a mat was brought to
the edge of the piling, and was raised a few feet
above water level by a pile-driver. The current
immediately caught the other edge and drew it
down against the piles or against the bottom, and
\J held it there. To prevent scour the bottom was
floored with mats and riprap. The current ob-
structed in passing through the willow dam
deposited silt, and in the course of time entirely
closed the channel. Similar work was adopted
at Head of the Passes. As a precautionary
measure, to prevent the narrowing of South Pass
from diverting water to the other Passes, a mat-
tress sill was laid across the mouth of Southwest
Pass, from shore to shore, to prevent enlargement,
and a similar mattress across the entrance to Pass
a TOutre. But the greatest work at the Head
of the Pass was the construction of contraction
dikes and deflecting dams, to narrow the channel

140

THE RIVER MOUTH

and insure the direction of its proper flow through
it. The entrance to South Pass was broad and
shoal, with a small island directly in the middle
of it. In the deeper approach, on the southwest
side of this island, there was about fifteen feet of
water at the time the jetty building began. It
was, of course, necessary to take immediate steps
to increase this depth and establish an open chan-
nel, to obtain the benefit of the jetties themselves.
This was accomplished by erecting a dike,
called Lighthouse Dike, on the point between
Southwest and South Passes, to hold that point
and direct the flow, and then by creating a large
work consisting of a dike extending straight up-
stream from the upper end of the island, parallel
to and about 1000 feet from Lighthouse Dike,
but running about 4000 feet to the head of the
obstructing shoal; there it connected with a cross
dike called the " upper dam," extending about
1700 feet in an easterly direction across the shoal
into the deep water of Pass a T Outre. Another
dam, about 1700 feet above the head of the
island, ran easterly to connect with a dike which
extended from the shore east of the island north-

141

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

easterly to the end of the Pass a 1'Outre sill.
Last of all, a dam crossed the to-be-abandoned
channel east of the island. The whole thus formed
an enormous silt-gathering obstruction designed
to create land in the area between South Pass and
Pass a 1'Outre, reduce the amount flowing into
the latter, and insure both the flow and the depth
of South Pass entrance.

This plan was in large measure the result of a
financial necessity. The first plan had been to
deflect the water by the dike known as East Dike
to the channel east of the island; but success by
this plan was slow in coming, money was giving
out, and Eads had not yet been able to get
through the War Department any official state-
ment of his success on which to base an appeal
for financial assistance. The only evidence he had
that the channel was improving was the continual
passing of the Cromwell steamers, for which there
was enough water west of, but not east of the
island. To continue to accommodate them was
his only hope of safety, and to do this it was
necessary to keep open the west channel. On this
account chiefly the plan was modified, the whole

142

THE RIVER MOUTH

expense of the East Dike being by the new plan
practically needless, and the long island dike was
built instead.

The dams, erected in a stiff current, in a soft
bottom, and with their progress interrupted by
high water, were of the same type as that at
Grand Bayou. Piling and timbering made a
heavy foundation or frame, the front strongly
braced against a rear row of piling. Across the
front of this frame mats were stood on edge as
at Grand Bayou, and at their feet other mats and
heavy stone revetment prevented scour. The dikes
were of mattress construction, similar to the jet-
ties, though without the heavy concrete over-
works necessary at the sea end. This work was
begun in June, 1876, and carried quickly to com-
pletion. In September of that year, to insure the
greatest benefit from the work and prevent any
enlargement of the other Passes, a dredge was set
to work on the shoal at the head of the west
channel, and an eighteen-foot cut was made. By
February, 1877, there was a least depth of 22
feet on the shoal, and a twenty-foot channel 110
feet wide. The whole shoal seemed to be moving

143

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

out bodily. By March 7 the twenty-two-foot
channel was everywhere 200 feet wide, and 23.9
feet draft could be carried from the river over
the shoal into the Pass. The channel continued to
develop rapidly, and by June 6, 1877, 414,400
cubic yards had been scoured out of this shoal.

All of the earlier work on the jetties was done
as hastily as possible, and often with so much
economy at the sacrifice of strength as to cause
serious loss from the failure of piling and of dams.
This haste was due to the necessity for getting
decided results in a deepened channel, to make
certain the financial side of the venture. That it
was successful is shown by the fact that in Feb-
ruary, 1877, Captain Eads received the first pay-
ment, of half a million dollars, for a channel
through the Pass twenty feet deep and two hun-
dred feet wide.

Yet though South Pass had become the chief
navigable outlet for the river, the progress of the
Eads partners toward the fulfillment of their con-
tract was still balked in many ways. Official sur-
veys were delayed, and the money became so short
that at one time the payrolls were more than two

144

THE EADS JETTIES, SOUTH PASS

THE BROAD RIVER NEAR MEMPHIS

THE RIVER MOUTH

months behind, with no relief in sight. Yet the
men themselves were so confident of success that
hardly an employee left the work when the
trouble was explained to them. In 1878 yellow
fever broke out in camp, and sent the force
scurrying in all directions. Operations were for
several months entirely suspended, and some of
the most valued men on the work were lost
through this disease. In spite of such handicaps,
however, the progress was fairly steady. To assist
in scouring, a big dredge was procured for the
bar at the mouth of the Pass, and month after
month saw the channel there improve. The most
difficult work was that of increasing the height
of the jetties by new mattresses, as they sunk be-
neath the water. Storms often destroyed many of
the upper mats, which were not yet concreted.

In 1877, to still further narrow the channel,
transverse wing-dams were set out from the jetties
into the channel, narrowing it to about 650 feet.
By December of that year there were 22 feet
over the shoals at the head and over the bar at
the mouth, both channels very broad. In 1879,
success being apparently in view, Congress passed

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REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

an act for the financial relief of Mr. Eads, which
permitted the payment of part of the money he
believed to be due him, and he was enabled to
complete the works. By July, 1879, there was
nearly 31 feet of water the entire length of the
jetty channel, with a twenty-six-foot channel
200 feet wide; and on July 8, 1879, Captain
Brown, the government inspector at the Pass,
certified to the War Department that there was
a clear channel of 30 feet depth without regard
to width, from the Mississippi above the Passes
to the Gulf of Mexico. That was the maximum
demand of the law.

By the requirements of his terms of his contract,
Captain Eads was compelled to continue in charge
of South Pass, keeping the jetties in repair, and
for twenty years taking whatever means might
be necessary to maintain the thirty-foot channel.
This task, which has of course been the complete
maintenance of the Mississippi mouth almost to
the present day, called for no more than the
restoration of jetties damaged by hurricanes, the
occasional replacing of wing-dams, gradual exten-
sion at the ends as the bar has advanced, and the

146

THE RIVER MOUTH

continual use of dredges over the bar to preserve
the depth beyond the end of the piers. For all
this he was made the allowance provided by law,
which was continued to his estate after his death,
and on June 6, 1900, Congress appropriated the
last money to complete the Eads contract:
$500,000, which had been retained by the nation
as a guarantee for the work, and on which the
estate had been collecting interest ; and $200,000
to buy the plant with which they had been work-
ing. At the same time an annual appropriation
of $100,000 to maintain South Pass channel was
established.

In the years of the Eads control, and down to
to-day, the thirty-foot channel has frequently
been briefly interrupted ; but there has been main-
tained depth enough at all times to allow vessels
drawing from 26 to 28 feet to enter and leave
the river, and those depths are now carried
regularly out of New Orleans. The channel is
safe and reliable, and while careful pilotage is
required in the whole length of the Pass, which
has shoaled in mid length to equal the cross
section of discharge, delays at the Pass are un-

147

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

known. For all practical purposes New Orleans
has had an unrestricted outlet to the sea.

But the prophecy of Eads has been fulfilled
more speedily than he could have expected. The
fast increasing traffic out of the Mississippi, and
the rapid increase in draft of ocean steamers, has
already rendered a narrow thirty-foot channel in-
sufficient for the needs of the great port of the
Centre. For years before the Eads charge was
taken over by the government, there was a de-
mand for a larger outlet. Southwest Pass, which
Eads himself had selected as the only proper out-
let and on which he had wished to try his hand,
is after all to be the real mouth. The $8,000,000
which we have paid to Eads and his estate repre-
sents our tuition in jetty building and the pre-
mium we have paid on the open channel for thirty
years. We might have saved most of it had we
followed the sensible old engineer in the first
place. For in 1899 Congress authorized, at a
cost of $20,000, a survey to determine the cost
of opening Southwest Pass by jetties to give a
channel 35 feet deep and 3000 feet wide ; and
in 1902 an appropriation of $750,000 and a con-

148

THE RIVER MOUTH

tinuing contract for $2,750,000 were authorized
to enable the government engineers to begin their
construction.

These works were let out by contract to a sin-
gle great firm, for whom there has been no hin-
drance, but only eager cooperation. They have
been built in the main along the Eads lines, with
his type of mattress, enlarged but only slightly
modified, and with the alternate layers of stone and
the concrete crown. The new jetties are of great
size, the foundation mats being 150 feet wide.
They extend, the one on the north nearly five
miles, that on the south about six miles into the
Gulf and across the bar. At their outer extremity
they are about 3000 feet apart; but instead of
following the Eads plan of having them parallel,
they have been designed with the south jetty
beginning at a distance from the river, and ap-
proaching it in funnel-like shape, the triangle
thus formed to the south of the channel being
filled in by dredging from the channel. The
purpose of this is to give the jetty a heavy sup-
port from southeasterly gales, which here reach
hurricane force. The new jetties have been built

149

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

with great speed. Having the advantage of
Eads's experience, and modern science, and the
hearty and active cooperation of the govern-
ment, the contractors have had little or no delay,
and have had ample funds. The Southwest Pass
channel will be opened to traffic at the full depth
of 35 feet before this book is printed.

Southwest Pass is the natural and final outlet
of the Mississippi. If it is ever necessary to do
more than is done now toward deepening it, that
can be accomplished by lessening the flow in
other outlets. But the mouth of this Pass stands
in deep water, and is scoured by a strong littoral
current setting to the westward ; there is no shore
under the lee of the Pass to found a new bar or
obstruction, and it seems not unlikely that the
present works will remain ample for several score
years at least, to provide for the enormous com-
merce which the Mississippi will send this way.
The total cost of all the Passes to the present
time is approximately $15,500,000.

CHAPTER VII
THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI

IT is upon the Upper Mississippi and one of its
principal tributaries that one finds carried out,
to the highest stage America has yet attained,
development by the conservation of the water sup-
ply and the forests, together with a proper appre-
ciation of the water power. The upper Mississippi
heads in a level plateau, rock-rimmed, and well
supplied with lakes and with large swamps. This
northern half of Minnesota was originally well
covered with pine forests, and enormous areas of
forest still persist there, much of it young growth
and much held by the state as reserve. The prob-
lems which confront the engineer there are to
provide a larger storage capacity for the lakes
and ponds, to drain the swamps and to straighten
and deepen the river between the numerous falls
and rapids over which it plunges between Itasca
and St. Anthony's, in the first five hundred miles
of its course. Below St. Anthony's it has special

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REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

problems which we will consider later. To the
present time there has been no attempt to develop
navigation above St. Anthony's, though, as all the
reservoir region is now known to be underlaid
with low grade iron ore, which must come south
to Illinois and Missouri for smelting, there is no
doubt that that channel will some day reach a
high stage of development.

The development of the upper river, and the
conservation of its waters, begins at its extreme
head, in the establishment of a perpetual forest
reserve about Lakes Itasca, Elk, and Hernando
de Soto, the latter two bodies being within the
rim of the ultimate source, and the former fur-
nishing the first definite stream of the Missis-
sippi. About 15,000 acres of primeval pine forest
is now included in the Itasca State Park, the land
having been turned over to the Minnesota gov-
ernment. In the end it will doubtless be much
enlarged, and many of the new forest reserves
will be established on the reserved territory of
the upper river. This f orestation of the sources
guarantees the preservation of the ultimate ponds
of the river, with their waters oozing throughout

152

THE MISSISSIPPI AT BEMIDJI

POKEGAMA DAM. THE REGULATING GATE OF THE MISSISSIPPI
RESERVOIRS, UPPER MISSISSIPPI

THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI

the low season out of the sheltering forest cover.
To add to the storage maintained in this way and \ g
to check the heavy spring floods, the government
has established a chain of reservoirs along the
stream, in Winnibigoshish, Cass, Leech, Pine,
Sandy, and Pokegama lakes. Each of these being
closed at its outlet by means of a beartrap leaf
set in a permanent concrete dam, the level of the
water has been raised, and a total storage capacity
of two million acre feet — about 90 billion cubic '
feet — obtained. As the river falls below a cer-
tain stage, the beartraps are lowered one after
another, and the flow is allowed to escape, pre-
serving a navigable depth below St. Paul, and
influencing the river appreciably to the entrance
of Lake Pepin, about 500 miles below the lowest
reservoir. This reservoir system, on which pro-
gress is now halted, is not complete, and will
not be until a large proportion of the remaining
ponds and lakes are similarly treated either by
the federal government or by the state or by
private individuals. Had a comprehensive system
of conservation been employed in the beginning,
when the title to all the land along the river was

153

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

still in the government, the reservoirs should all
have been placed as near as possible to the ulti-
mate source, in order that the largest number o£
waterfalls might have been affected by the flow
from them. Then by the development of these
water powers and the electric transmission of the
power to the nearest manufacturing centres, a
possibility which could not have been foreseen
when the reservoirs were established, there would
have been provided a definite revenue for the
government to repay the original cost. As it is,
most of these dam sites, beginning a few miles
below Itasca and extending to St. Anthony's
Falls, have been alienated in perpetuity without
recompense or any qualifying clause, except that
in each the government may build and operate
a lock when it shall extend navigation to these
waters ; and that in each dam there must be a
log sluice and a fish way. It is not yet settled to
what extent the government can go in the direc-
tion of electrical development ; but there remains
open the solution found by Wisconsin for con-
serving the Wisconsin River, which lies wholly
within that state, and which is described later.

154

THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI

Eventually, either under some power from the
general government or under the direction of
the state, the available ponds will be conserved for
the benefit both of mill-owners and of navigation.
The result, as far as we have gone now, is to
increase the navigable low-water channel at St.
Paul a foot in depth. The ultimate result must
be to multiply the storage capacity by about four
or five times, to increase the period during which
the reservoirs are drawn upon, and to add at least
a foot and probably eighteen inches more to the
low- water channel depth.

All this, of course, means electrical power de-
velopment, and the employment of that power
in electric smelting of the ores hidden beneath
the reservoirs and under the surrounding lands ;
in paper-making; in milling the northwestern
wheat; in manufacturing various articles from
the forest growth; and in electro-chemical enter-
prises, which will create a greater traffic for the
upper river itself. No careful estimate has yet
been made of the power which lies in this stream,
and there is as yet no commercial development to
make use of it. There is used at Minneapolis

155

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

to-day, at the lowest falls, 43,000 horse-power.
Between the head of St. Anthony's Falls and St.
Cloud there is at least 100,000 horse-power ; and
it is probable that with the reservoirs established
there will be in the long, steep fall from Itasca to
St. Cloud at least another 100,000. With the
development of that will come the final establish-
ment of barge navigation, to or nearly to the
source, by means of the same dams which de-
velop the power and by stone locks beside them.
Open channel work, the clearing away of per-
manent obstructions and of bars, will also be a
feature of the work.

The greatest obstacle to navigation between
the upper and the middle rivers is the stretch of
swift water beginning at the mouth of the Min-
nesota River, halfway between St. Paul and
Minneapolis, and extending upstream above the
head of St. Anthony's Falls. No attempt has yet
been made to pass the falls themselves, though it
ultimately will be done probably by an abrupt dam
replacing the falls, and high enough to drown
out the rapids, and by a lock and short canal for
steamboats. Below the falls the federal govern-

156

THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI

ment has built two locks and dams, in an effort
to establish five-foot navigation ; but as two feet
is all that can be carried as yet up to the lowest
dam, there has been no haste in finishing them.
It is probable that when the electrical develop-
ment comes on, a larger dam drowning out both
of these will be built to concentrate the power.
Certainly a five-foot channel can and must be
provided eventually for carrying in coal, for
carrying out flour from the wonderful mills of
Minneapolis, and for carrying out either ore to
the smelter or manufactured iron products from
the fabulous and untouched iron beds of western
and central Minnesota.

The Minnesota River, formerly called the St.
Peter, which enters the Mississippi above St.
Paul, is one of its chief tributaries in importance,
a prairie stream flowing through what was ori-
ginally the main valley of the Mississippi. Before
the fall of the waters or the shifting of the
ground levels stopped such a flow, the waters of
Lake Winnipeg and its allies came down through
Ked River of the North and flowed south through
this Minnesota River and on down the Missis-

157

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

sippi. The divide between the two systems now
is hardly appreciable, and in time will be covered
by the establishment of reservoirs at the sources
of both. The Minnesota is capable of consider-
able storage development, adding to the conser-
vation of the flood waters of the river.

From the Minnesota down, navigation is an
actual fact. The work has been done to establish
a shallow but "open" channel. The aim has
been to close all secondary channels and con-
centrate the water in one; to remove all ob-
structing rock reefs, and as far as possible the
bars ; * to keep the new bars dredged ; to provide
ice harbors and shelters, as well as local harbors
for towns ; to riprap threatened banks ; and to
provide artificial channels through the two prin-
cipal obstructions of the stream, the Des Moines
and Rock Island rapids.

Des Moines rapids extends for about twelve
miles upstream from Keokuk, Iowa, in which dis-
tance the river falls more than twenty feet. This
rapid is impassable at low stages, and in early
days absolutely prevented the upstream passage
of steamboats except on liberal water. At the close

158

THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI

of the Civil War the government engineers took
charge, and, aided by liberal appropriations, began
the construction of a canal about the rapids, with
a series of three locks of about eight feet drop
each, to pass steamboats of a size up to 350 by 75
feet, and drawing five feet. This canal and the
accompanying locks were completed about 1880,
at a cost a little less than $6,000,000.

The Kock Island rapids, opposite the city of
that name, are less extensive than those at Keo-
kuk, but equally impassable. At the same time
that work began at the Des Moines rapids, opera-
tions were begun at Kock Island on an open cut
through the rock. This cut was made chiefly by
means of stone chisels, working in grooves in
floats. This work was extremely difficult and ex-
pensive, as high as $18 a cubic yard being paid
for the removal of some of the rock. The work
was prosecuted under a long series of appropri-
ations, and not completed until after the Des
Moines canal locks were opened. The straight-
away channel, 300 feet wide, was later deepened
to give a depth of four and one half feet below
ordinary low water.

159

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

This work, and that at Des Moines rapids, is,
however, of a makeshift character, designed en-
tirely for the purpose of providing navigation,
and taking no other account of the value of the
running water. Already steps are under way to
replace it by more complete development. A pri-
vate corporation has been given the privilege of
drowning out the Des Moines rapids and of de-
veloping the power, and even if this concern fails
to do the work, it has become evident that in time
it will be done there and at Rock Island as well.

The project for Des Moines consists in the
erection of a dam 35 feet high, flooding the rap-
ids, and extending diagonally across the stream
from Keokuk to the Illinois shore at a point some
distance upstream. The three locks and the long
canal now held by the government will also be
flooded out, and deep water will exist at all stages
for a considerable distance above the head of the
canal at Montrose. In place of the three locks a
single great lock will be placed beside the dam,
and navigation will be facilitated by the substitu-
tion of quick and open movement for the slow
canal passage. The water power at Keokuk will

160

BIRD'S-EYE VIEW, LOCK AND DAM NO. 2, MISSISSIPPI RIVER

STEAMER ENTERING LOCK AT KEOKUK, UPPER MISSISSIPPI

THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI

vary in amount with the stage of the water, being
greatest at mid stages, less at low water, and least
in floods ; but the continued increase of reservoir-
ing on the Wisconsin, the Chippewa,the St. Croix,
the Minnesota, and the Upper Mississippi, which
will be steadily carried on, will tend to regulate
this and make the medium flow a standard, de-
veloping something in excess of 150,000 horse-
power. The dam, locks, and electric plant will
cost about $10,000,000.

With the work at the two rapids and the regu-
larizing improvements, a reliable channel, four
feet six inches deep at low water, has been pro-
vided from St. Paul down to the mouth of the
Missouri.

Below the Des Moines rapids and canal the up-
per river comes under the domination of the Mis-
souri, a river less in volume of water than the
Mississippi, but extremely full of suspended earthy
matter, brought down chiefly from its upper trib-
utaries. From this point to Cairo, or rather to
Commerce, the river is difficult to manage, and
presents problems differing from those met in the
clear water above and from those in the rockless

161

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

river below. The difficulty met with in maintain-
ing an eight-foot channel there is increased by the
new necessity of providing 14 feet through part
of the stretch, to accommodate the "Lakes-to-the-
Gulf " deep waterway, which is to enter from the
Illinois just above the Missouri. This is to be
accomplished by erecting a dam at Alton, below
the Illinois and above the Missouri, which will
deepen the Mississippi above to 14 feet at low
water, and will keep out from it the silt problem
of the Missouri, always a complication when the
Missouri is the higher. From this dam a canal 14
feet deep will extend down the Illinois shore to
a point near St. Louis, where it will again enter
the Mississippi. St. Louis harbor is already deep-
ened and contracted, and from this point down
to Commerce rock removal and the methods of
contraction and revetment combined will be suf-
ficient to obtain a deep waterway. At present this
part of the river is in a neglected condition, the
money spent below Cairo and that above St. Louis
not having been paralleled in this stretch which
connects those two regions. Ostensibly an eight-
foot channel is maintained by dredging, but prac-

162

THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI

tically it occasionally shoals up to five feet or less
over critical bars.

The Upper Mississippi has four principal tribu-
taries, of which two, the Missouri and the Illinois,
are worthy of treatment in separate chapters. The
other two are the Minnesota and the Wisconsin ;
and the St. Croix and the Chippewa might be
added to them.

The Wisconsin is the only stream in America
for which a complete and definite system of work-
ing-out has been adopted, which includes the
storage of water and its effective use for power.
The river was long worked over by the federal
authorities, who employed the usual means of
contraction, deflecting dikes, and dredging to
maintain a channel ; and in this were the more
persistent because the Wisconsin approaches the
Fox at Portage, and a canal there connected Lake
Michigan with the Mississippi by the route over
which Marquette first came to the West. As the
extensive forests of the upper country were de-
molished, however, the Wisconsin, always a river
hard to manage, became filled with sand-bars to
an extent which precluded successful develop-

163

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

ment; and its waters became hard to control,
extremely heavy floods and long droughts alter-
nating with each other. Accordingly the federal
authorities abandoned the stream and pronounced
it unnavigable.

But the interest of the state in the stream was
due to another element. This river furnishes,
with the Fox, the principal power on which Wis-
consin depends for her increasing manufactures.
The state contains no mineral fuel. It was essen-
tial to continued prosperity that the river be re-
servoired, in order to conserve the flood supply
for low season. The state forester had already
selected the headwaters of the Wisconsin as the
location for a forest reserve of about three million
acres, of which about one tenth is already ac-
quired and in trees. In 1907 there was passed a
bill allowing the mill-owners along this stream to
incorporate an improvement corporation. This
corporation was given power to enter upon all
the streams and ponds at the headwaters, in and
out of the forest reserve, and to dam them for
the purpose of impounding water to preserve the
power. But the forester was given authority to

164

THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI

employ engineers at their expense, and to deter-
mine exactly how high the water in each pond
might be raised, to mark that point with stone
monuments, and thereafter to have control over
the storage and the use of the water. The state
railway commission was given authority to employ
engineers, and to survey and determine the exact
power previously obtained at every dam site, the
area of its watershed, the amount of pondage, and
the flow every week of the year. When the stor-
age system has been completed, the commission
will make another survey, and determine the
amount to which every power is benefited. The
corporation is allowed to issue stock to pay the
cost of the improvements, and an assessment is
laid upon betterment to pay the cost of the state
supervision and six per cent dividends on the
stock. This tax is assessed by the railway com-
missioners each year, according to betterment.
There are provisions against the establishment
of a monopoly, and the state retains the right to
buy out the corporation at a fixed valuation.

Under the operation of this wise law, the for-
ests of Wisconsin will furnish yearly a larger

165

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

amount of material for the use of her factories.
The water stored under the forest cover and in
the ponds will furnish a maximum of power to
turn the wheels; and the stream itself, protected
from sand wash by the forests, settled in the
ponds, and free from logs and other obstructions,
will again become a navigable waterway not only
up to Kilbourne, where vessels were formerly
halted, but for many miles farther through the
heart of the state. The development of the navi-
gable channel will be almost an automatic affair,
with the exception of the construction of locks at
the dams ; and the Mississippi itself will be largely
benefited by the additional steady low- water flow
which will be contributed to it at Prairie du
Chi en.

Our financial account with the main stream
of the Mississippi above Cairo, up to June 30,
1906, is as follows : —

To and including

1892. Des Moines Rapids, canal, and lock, $5,345,450.00

Lake Pepin, 60,000.00

Meeker's Island, 25,000.00

St. Paul to Des Moines Rapids, 2,833,100.00

Rock Island Rapids, 1,166,000.00

(In 1852.) Rock Island and Des Moines Rapids, 100,000.00

Des Moines Rapids to the Ohio, 6,001,000.00

Minneapolis to the Missouri (1892), 600,000.00

166

THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI

Missouri to the Ohio (1892), 525,000.00

Snags (1870-1892), 507,000.00

St. Louis harbor, 182,000.00

1893, March 3. Ohio to Missouri, 658,333.33

Missouri to Minneapolis, 866,666.67

1894, Aug. 13. St. Paul to Minneapolis, Lock and

Dam 2, 51,000.00

Aug. 18. Ohio to Missouri, 758,333.33

Missouri to Minneapolis, 866,666.67

1895, March 2. Ohio to Missouri (of which $150,000

for trying movable jetties), 758,333.33
Missouri to Minneapolis (many small

specifications), 866,666.67

1896, June 3. St. Paul to Minneapolis, 100,000.00

St. Paul to the Missouri, 200,000.00

Missouri to Ohio, 275,000.00
(Continuing contract for $5,000,-
025, and order for nine-foot
channel below St. Louis.)

1897, June 4. Ohio to Missouri, 673,333.33

Missouri to Minneapolis, 826,666.67

To prevent Cache River cut-off, 100,000.00

1897, July 19. Ohio to Missouri, 325,000.00

Missouri to St. Paul, 200,000.00

1898, July 1. Ohio to Missouri, 673,333.33

Missouri to St. Paul, 826,666.67

1899, March 3. Ohio to Missouri, 673,333.33

Missouri to St. Paul, 826,666.67

St. Paul to Minneapolis (dam), 150,000.00

1900, June 6. St. Paul to Minneapolis, 185,000.00

Ohio to St. Paul, 250,000.00

1902, March 3. St. Paul to Minneapolis, 157,000.00
(Secretary of Treasury author-
ized to pay balance of a con-
tinuing contract authorized in
1899.)

Missouri to St. Paul, 400,000.00
(Three-year continuing contract,

$1,200,000.)

1902, June 13. Ohio to Missouri, 150,000.00

(Continuing contract, $1,950,000.)

1902, June 28. St. Paul to Minneapolis, 250,000.00

167

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

223,579.33
650,000.00
400,000.00
650,000.00

1903, March 3. St. Paul to Minneapolis,

Ohio to Missouri (continuing con-
tract),

St. Paul to Missouri (continuing con-
tract),

1904, April 28. Ohio to Missouri (continuing con-

tract),

St. Paul to Missouri (continuing con-
tract),

1905, March 3. Moline harhor,

(Dredging ordered below Mis-
souri, engineers may use bal-
ance on hand.)

1905, March 3.

S. C. bill, Mouth of Ohio to the Missouri,
Missouri to St. Paul,

1906, June 30. Missouri to St. Paul,

Moline harbor,

1907, St. Paul to Minneapolis, dams land 2,

1872-1892.

1879-1892.
1894, Aug. 13.
1896, June 3.
1899, March 3.
1902, June 13.
1905, March 3.

1874-1892.

Preserving St. Anthony's Falls,

400,000.00
100,000.00

650,000.00
400,000.00
300,000.00
150,000.00
30,000.00

$33,391,779.33
615,000.00

BESEBVOIBS.

Winnibigoshish reservoir,

Leech Lake reservoir,

Pine River dam and other purposes,

Care of river above Falls,

814,000.00
51,000.00
80,000.00
210,000.00
250,000.00
160,000.00
133,000.00

$35,704,779.33

CHAPTER VIII
THE MISSOURI

OF all the branches of the Mississippi system,
that one which offers the greatest variety of
problems for the engineers to solve is the Mis-
souri ; and this by reason of its uncertain water
supply, its burden of silt eroded from its upper
tributaries, the friable nature of its lower bed,
and the fact that its waters are in demand not
only for the usual purposes of power and naviga-
tion, but, in addition, for irrigation. Yet in pro-
portion as it offers large problems, so it contains
the promise of large reward in achievement.
When the Missouri system shall have been de-
veloped to its fullest extent, a large portion of
semi-arid North America not now useful for hu-
man habitation will have been transformed into
a garden of plenty.

The Missouri has its rise in the union of three
rivers in the mountains of southern Montana, and
becomes almost at once navigable. It continues

169

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

useful for steamboats for several hundred miles,
and then plunges down through a rocky course
over falls aggregating 512 feet, where it creates
at low water a power of about 500,000 horse,
some of which is already developed. Below Great
Falls it again becomes theoretically navigable,
Fort Benton having been for many years head
of the steamboat channel. From there across the
arid Bad Lands of North Dakota, down through
the heart of both Dakotas, near the richest wheat
lands in America, between the fertile corn lands
of Nebraska and Iowa, of Kansas and Missouri,
it continues to maintain a channel capable of
development by ordinary channel methods above
Sioux City to a depth of three feet, and below
Sioux City to six feet under present conditions,
both channels being capable of still higher
development when the ultimate schemes at head-
waters shall have been carried out.

The Missouri is a river with a bad reputation,
especially for shifting its bed. During the thou-
sand miles immediately below Fort Benton, it
flows largely through rocky regions or through
a land where it cannot widely change its chan-

170

A GROIN TO PREVENT UNDERSCOUR

SINKING A GROIN, MISSOURI RIVER

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

THE MISSOURI

nel. After passing Sioux City, however, it flows,
like the Lower Mississippi, in a hill-compelled
major bed, in which is a minor bed of its own
establishment, bounded only by sand and soft al-
luvion, except where the river has driven back
against its bluffs. It is a river of swift current,
and cuts and tears its banks with more violence
than does the larger river downstream. It is,
however, not deep, and the measures for its con-
trol need not be as costly as those for the Lower
Mississippi.

The story of the development of the Missouri
is soon told, though it is a story which should be
more widely known. In the early days of steam-
boat traffic, when the Missouri was carrying its
share of the great rush to the plains and the
gold fields, the channel was not only shifty, but
snag-infested. Steamboats ran only by daylight.
The government kept snagboats at work in the
channel, but in spite of their efforts three hun-
dred steamboats were lost in the river, of which
almost all were snagged. It was not until 1884,
four years after the Mississippi River Commis-
sion had begun to manifest its usefulness, that

171

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

Congress created the Missouri River Commission,
and gave it charge of the stream. At first this
body had charge of all the Missouri, and at once
began a comprehensive survey; but later the
plan followed on the Mississippi was adopted,
and the river above Sioux City was taken from
the commission's charge and given into the
hands of the individual engineer officers. Con-
trol works on the Missouri necessarily were of
the type described on the Lower Mississippi, —
that is to say, they were entirely local in their
character and had no influence and no purpose
toward influence upon the general regime of the
river.

A survey of the stream made by the Missouri
River Commission demonstrated that, with its
existing flow, it was perfectly suitable to control
for navigation by the methods of revetment and
contraction ; that owing to its nature such revet-
ment, to be of value, must begin at a fixed point
high upstream and continue thence to the mouth
in an unbroken system, so that each bend might
deliver a current in a definite line into the bend
next below and opposite. The history of the

172

THE MISSOURI

Missouri River Commission, from that time to its
extinction in 1902, is the story of the continual
advocacy of that excellent plan, and of an at-
tempt to carry it out, handicapped by the meth-
ods of governmental control which have hereto-
fore made almost useless all our river work. The
commission, having its plans made up, reported
to Congress in favor of beginning at Sioux City,
and from there down maintaining a systematic
work ; but compromised on beginning at Kansas
City. It was not, however, for several years
allowed to do this, but was by specific direction
required to spend its money in revetment at cer-
tain points, chiefly to protect railway embank-
ments and the approaches to railway bridges.
When, for a short series of years, it was allowed
to begin at Kansas City and work downstream,
it was given short appropriations, and was still
required to maintain an expensive plant to carry
on the railway protection ; so that of nearly
$8,000,000 which was all told appropriated for
the commission, little more than $3,000,000 was
allowed for systematic work in eighteen years,
including the cost of plant and maintenance.

173

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

Nevertheless, with this, amazing results were
accomplished. The problem of revetment, in
which at first woven brush mats were used, proved
easy to solve with light fascine mattresses, similar
to, but smaller than, those used on the Missis-
sippi. A bend in the Missouri properly faced
with fascine revetment and stone, with the bend
above it similarly held to insure direction, is safe
against any changes for a long term of years,
and may be retained in that position indefinitely.
Unfortunately continuous fascine revetment, even
here where the mats needed to be but forty feet
wide, was more costly than the commission could
provide for, though it could sometimes be installed
for $5000 a mile. As a result the commission
compromised on a development of its own called
a " bankhead." This bankhead is an isolated re-
vetment, made in the form of an arc with the
convex side toward the river, the slopes being
protected by the existing bank, and supposedly
of a curvature which will deflect the swiftest
current without injury. The plan was to place
these bankheads at sufficiently frequent intervals
along the concave shores to establish salient

174

OF THE

{ UNIVERSITY J

£4LlFOR]ii>

THE MISSOURI

points and hold the bank against erosion, the
theory being that, as the bank between them was
eaten out, eddies were established in which the
river had not the power to eat to any destructive
distance.

In theory the bankhead works well. In practice,
on such a stream as the Missouri, it requires to
be set so close to its fellow, and is so liable even
then to injury, that it is not a practicable per-
manent solution ; and but for lack of money it
would not have been adopted there.

Supplementary to the bankheads, many forms
of dikes were used to close secondary channels
and to contract the stream at low water into a
navigable bed. On no other of our waters was
the ingenuity of our engineers so taxed as here.
Many forms of small dike construction, and such
oddities as gabions, and burrs — woven cages of
brush filled with rock and sunk to form out-foot-
ing for bankheads and foundation for sand-bars
— were worked out and built in large numbers.
The problem was one of getting the most work
done with the least expenditure.

The chief difficulty encountered in the long
175

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

reach of river, nearly 500 miles, from Kansas
City to St. Louis, was at the mouth of the Osage
Kiver, where the addition of a heavy sand-bearer
from the right bank had always created shifting
bars and kept the channel intricate and shoal.
The commission not only undertook the manage-
ment of the Osage by means suggested by the
elder Haupt for the Ohio, — that is, alternate
open sections and narrow canals, shaped by train-
ing dikes, — but made a new mouth for the river
into the Missouri, and revetted heavily opposite
to it in both directions to insure permanency.
The result was most happy, so that with three
years of fair appropriations the engineers were
able to clear a five-foot channel and maintain it
through this reach ; and by the end of 1900 they
were able to assure boatmen a five-foot channel
at extreme low water from the mouth of the Mis-
souri up to Jefferson City, a distance of more
than 250 miles.

When Congress decided to abandon the Mis-
souri in 1902, because there was then no commerce
on the river, the question of the control of the
existing stream had been solved. Up above Sioux

176

THE MISSOURI

City training dikes had been erected, snagboats
and rockboats had removed obstructions, and fair
channels for three-foot navigation had in many
places been established. No attempt had been
made on the ultimate control. But in the lower,
on the theoretically impossible "Muddy," the
river which was supposed to be able to twist any
controlling works ever designed into any shape
it wished, the commission had established beyond
cavil that competent engineers, with ample but
not extravagant appropriations, could do what-
ever they set out to.

Since 1902 nothing has been done beyond occa-
sional snagging on this part of the river; but the
channel remains, showing some of the effects of
the commission's work, unprotected as it was left.
The five-foot channel to Kansas City persists
most of the time, and except for snags, navi-
gation is almost as safe there as on the Lower
Mississippi.

On the real development of the Missouri, how-
ever, we have yet to enter. This mighty stream —
for mighty it is, though in volume less than the
Ohio or the Upper River — draws many of its trib-

177

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

utaries from a region which contains almost no
forest cover. This barren land receives some snow
in winter, and heavy rains in May and late April.
These rains, after melting the snows, erode the
land, and run with increasing burdens of sus-
pended matter into the small streams and thence
into the larger. Most of the tributaries which come
in from North Dakota's western half flow through
deep gorges, and through a country broken and
irregular from this erosion. It is the silt acquired
here and from the Yellowstone which makes the
problem of control so heavy lower down.

After the spring rains are off there fall only oc-
casional showers over this arid region, and these
showers are so scattered that they are lost in evap-
oration without reaching the river. The Missouri
has a watershed more than double that of the
Ohio, but even were its rainfall heavier than it is,
the run-off percentage is so low it could not equal
the eastern stream in flow. Consequently the
Missouri "dreens away," until it becomes in the
low months but an insignificant stream in an enor-
mous bed prepared by and for the spring freshets.

In many of these broken ridges of the Missouri
178

THE MISSOURI

country there are fabulous stores of lignite coal.
It crops out in veins sometimes 40 feet in thick-
ness. All along the river, between the water bed
and top of the bluffs, are benches of land which
with proper water supply would be of very great
value for farming. There are no dam sites on the
Missouri below Fort Benton, nor on many of the
tributaries in North Dakota, available for the pur-
pose of irrigating by gravity. The Government
Eeclamation Service, however, has come to the
adoption of a new plan, establishing "mine-cen-
tral" stations at these lignite mines, and convey-
ing the electric power there generated to motor
pumps at distant stations, by which the water of
the Missouri is pumped up to canals on the several
benches, sometimes 100 feet above the river. The
establishment of these irrigated regions along the
stream will itself have a considerable effect upon
the soil wash. And as every pumping station has
a settling basin, where the burden of silt is ex-
tracted from the water, considerable amounts of
waste soil will thus be recovered to be returned to
the land. But it is impossible that the pumping
of large amounts of river water should be allowed

179

REMAKING LTHE MISSISSIPPI

from a navigable stream at low seasons, unless
some compensatory measure is adopted. Accord-
ingly the ravines of the Bad Lands and the gorges
of the Montana mountains must one by one be
dammed, and transformed into storage reservoirs,
for which purpose they are as well suited as they
are ill fitted to furnish a gravity flow to the higher
benches. In the reservoirs thus established in the
heart of the Bad Lands will be found, first, a steady-
ing influence on the stream; second, a means of
settling and collecting suspended earth; third, a
source of supply for irrigation and of power for
pumping; fourth, perhaps best of all, a decided
influence on the climate, producing by evapora-
tion an added moisture for the air, which will not
be without effect upon the surrounding country.
Trees will be planted along the river banks; and
the added moisture, aided by irrigation, will be
used to transform such of the adjacent regions as
can be reached by pumping, into farm lands, and
much of the rest into forest tracts, thus cutting
down to a minor factor the erosion of the soil.

What will be done in North Dakota will be done
also in Montana, on the cloudy Yellowstone and

180

THE MISSOURI

Milk rivers; and on the lower tributaries similar
works will be adopted. Additional storage, addi-
tional power, and a lessened erosion will result
from all these means; and in the end there will be
a Missouri which will send down no great June
rise, — for that will be checked in the reservoirs,
— and which will not go dry in the fall ; but in
which from the time the ice moves out until it
comes again there will be an ample and steady and
fairly clear water supply to follow the contracted
and revetted channel to the sea.

In addition to this, the reservoiring of the upper
branches will increase the existing 600,000 horse-
power of the Missouri in Montana probably to
1,000,000, from which should come a revenue suf-
ficient to improve the whole stream. Our present
bill to the Missouri is as follows: —

Appropriated for the Commission, lower river . $7,010,000
Appropriated for whole river, not under Commis-
sion 5,091,000

Total spent on Missouri .... $12,101,000

To which is added money spent on the Osage and
Gasconade $803,115.79

$12,904,115.79

CHAPTER IX

THE OHIO, AND CANALIZATION

HAVING traced thus in brief the develop-
ment of the channel of two of the principal
factors of the Mississippi by measures designed to
give unobstructed navigation, and having pointed
out the way by which the conservation of these
streams must come about, we come now to a new
set of problems, those which have to do with fur-
nishing a channel in a river too steep in slope for
open channel methods, too variable in level for
the employment of fixed dams, and by its moun-
tainous head regions furnishing the sudden
deluges and sharp flood waves which provide the
greatest difficulty in holding the Lower Missis-
sippi levees. We come to the problem of the
canalization of rivers, and especially to the devel-
opment of canalization in a river of violent and
sudden fluctuations.

In volume of water, in flood height, in destruc-
tive power, and, for the present, in volume of

182

THE OHIO, AND CANALIZATION

commerce borne, the Ohio River is easily first of
the upper grand divisions of the Mississippi. It
is greater than either the Missouri or the Upper
Mississippi, and is the source of all the most
destructive floods which sweep the valley below
Cairo. It is a river of rocky bed and of steep
slope in its upper parts, becoming in its lower
reaches gentle and full of sand-bars. As has been
described in the chapter on hydrology, it is made
up chiefly of a large number of swift-running
mountain streams, which empty their heavy rain-
falls pellmell into the major stream ; and while
this tendency probably has been considerably in-
creased by the deforestation of the upper water-
shed, the river has always been and must always
be one of sudden accessions and sudden dis-
charges of water.

For such a stream the improvement for naviga-
ble purposes must take the direction of reservoir
control, in order that a sufficient amount of water
may be retained at all stages. The form of this
reservoir control, however, may vary widely ; and
the form to be used on the Ohio has always been
a subject of interesting study among engineers.

183

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

The river is itself, in a way, made up of a
series of inadequate reservoirs, with connecting
channels. From the formation of the river by
the union of the Allegheny and Monongahela
at Pittsburg, down to Cairo, 967 miles, the river
falls about 500 feet ; of this all but 157 feet
is accomplished above Cincinnati, the smaller
part in the 515 miles below that city. From Pitts-
burg to Wheeling the slope is more than a foot
to the mile.

The steep descent from Pittsburg to Cincin-
nati is by no means accomplished with regularity.
The river is, instead, a series of natural reser-
voirs and dams. There are in all 187 pools in
which there is more than seven feet of water at
lowest stages ; and these are separated by riffles,
in which the channel is steep and shoal. The
pools make up an aggregate of 632.5 miles, or
an average of 3.47 miles each. There are on that
part of the river which borders the State of Ohio
103 riffles, aggregating 137 miles, in which the
river falls 170 feet, or more than a foot to the
mile ; while there are on the borders of the same
state, and between these same riffles, 309 miles of

184

THE OHIO, AND CANALIZATION

pools, in which there is but 64 feet fall. At Le-
Tart's Falls the descent is 3.2 feet to the mile,
and there are 11 riffles in which it exceeds 2 feet
to the mile. On the other hand, a pool extending
from eight to fifteen miles below Cincinnati, be-
low Cullom's riffle, has a fall of but 3.5 inches in
7 miles. On the Indiana front these conditions are
reproduced, there being 55 riffles exclusive of the
Falls of the Ohio at Louisville, with a descent of
80 feet in 134 miles, and 215 miles of pool with
but 18.13 feet of fall, or about an inch to the
mile. The falls at Louisville descend 23.09 feet in
2.25 miles. The river flows in a rock-compelled
bed, between rocky hills. The rock floor of the
valley is rarely more than 75 feet below low
water level, and is frequently within 25 feet of
that line, the average being between 30 and 50
feet. It comes to the surface at many places, but
rarely or never forms at this high level a com-
plete barrier across the valley, leaving, even at
LeTart's Falls, a narrow chute through which an
open channel can be maintained.

During the years since the Civil War our gov-
ernment has steadily continued the improvement

185

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

of the existing Ohio River channel, as it had
been begun by Shreve, by open-channel methods.
These costly, and not entirely satisfactory, oper-
ations are still being extended. They constitute,
as do the dikes and revetments of the Mississippi,
a series of works of regularization, by which it is
sought to contract the river to a regular and
sufficient channel. For this purpose there are
erected many miles of guiding dikes, of the most
permanent type, consisting of cribbing and stone
work ; many dams and dikes behind islands and
across chutes ; and a large number of ice-harbor
and other protective works. Dredges, snagboats,
and rock-removing craft have regularly patrolled
the river, with the result that in the course of
years what water happens at a given time to be
in the river flows with practical certainty in a
given channel, which is free of obstruction and
safe for the navigator up to its limit of depth.

The limit of depth, however, is very slight.
Even in the lower reaches the water sometimes
measures but twenty inches, and but for the dam
and pool system the upper waters would be even
more shoal. The river, which sports a depth of

186

THE OHIO, AND CANALIZATION

more than 60 feet in February, is but a pitiful
rivulet in August. And from this has naturally
arisen the proposal for improving the Ohio by
means of storage reservoirs. In the end some such
system will undoubtedly be instituted on many
divisions of the Ohio, as it will on nearly all our
rivers. But there are many complications here
which render difficult its general use. It is more
than fifty years now since it was proposed by
Charles Ellet, Jr., that the improvement of the
Ohio and the prevention of floods on the lower
Mississippi should be brought about by the same
means, the establishment of great reservoirs on
the upper waters of the Ohio. Mr. Ellet computed
that the storage of a large volume of water by
means of dams in the valleys of the Monongahela,
the Cheat, the Kanawha, the Allegheny, the
Youghiogheny, and many other streams would
hold up enough to take the dangerous crests off
the floods, and at the same time would reserve
enough water to give a good depth to navigation
during low-water stages. <

Herman Haupt, then at the height of his ca-
reer, quickly answered Ellet's able pamphlet with

187

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

another, in which he analyzed the whole scheme
and showed its weakness. On the Upper Ohio
tributaries the lands which are particularly valu-
able are those which lie in the bottoms of the
valleys ; on them practically the whole population
was living. These lands would be drowned out
by the reservoirs. The reservoirs would need to
be immense, because there are often two or three
successive floods in a year, and at least one whole
flood must be retained for the summer time. If
the reservoirs were filled with one flood, and an-
other came, they could not prevent damage;
whereas if they were emptied in anticipation and
no flood came, they would have no summer aid.
Many other obstacles arose in the way of the
plan ; and as mining has increased, and the mills
in the valleys have increased by thousands, the
cost of such a plan has advanced enormously
since his day.

Instead of it General Haupt put forward two
plans, each a modification of it, in which local
storage along the Ohio itself was to be used. In
his first plan he would have had a partial dam
with lock at the foot of every pool, so that water

188

THE OHIO, AND CANALIZATION

should be retained in them, and a channel re-
stricted by a low wall, only 300 feet wide, through
each riffle. Thus he would have had at low water
open channel navigation through the whole
stream ; and at moderate stages when there was
too much fall from pool to canal, the locks would
have been used. The dams were to be low to
allow for easy spilling.

From this worked out the system which has
been actually developed, and which will possibly
always be the largest example of slack-watering,
or canalization, in this country if not in the world.
This is the lock and dam method finally recom-
mended to Congress in 1875 by Majors Weitzel
and Merrill, adopted after long debate by that
august body, and now being by slow and painful
method put into operation. It is the method of
slack-watering by means of collapsible dams, by
which each of the natural pools is reinforced with
a dam at its lower extremity, this dam being
equipped with a large lock; the dam standing
erect at low water and holding a large pool in re-
serve for the purpose of maintaining the channel,
and being thrown prostrate on the approach of a

189

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

flood, so that the progress of the wave may not
be hindered. By this means it was at first hoped
to obtain a six-foot low-water channel in the
Ohio; but later surveys have demonstrated the
possibility of increasing this to nine feet, and
the dams already in operation are being remod-
eled, as fast as circumstances will permit, to that
new depth. It is possible twelve or fourteen feet
may be eventually obtained by the use of addi-
tional mountain reservoirs.

Movable dams, or collapsible dams, are of many
types ; and nearly all types are to be found on Amer-
ican streams. The principal purpose of them all is
to provide a barrier for the low-water flow, which
either automatically or with a minimum of effort
can be removed from the path of high water.
The principal types are the "needle dam," of
which perhaps our best example is the dam at
Louisa on the Big Sandy ; the Chanoine wicket
dam, which is generally adopted for the Ohio ;
the A-frame, somewhat used there ; and the bear-
trap, an American invention much used for
sluices and weirs, with its modification, the Crit-
tenden drum weir dam. The needle dam consists of

190

THE OHIO, AND CANALIZATION

a supporting trestle and a number of timbers,
or needles, set upright, adjacent to each other,
their feet upon the dam-sill and their shoulders
supported by the trestle. The trestle of a needle
dam consists of a number of two-legged frames,
A-shaped, each set with one leg directly down-
stream from the other, hinged to the foundation
behind the sill so that all can fall together, side-
wise, athwart the stream, and lie nested within
each other behind the sill. In this position they
offer no obstruction whatever to the passage of
floods or vessels. They are raised by a chain pass-
ing through them all to the windlass on the
abutment, and are equipped with proper parts
for forming a bridge connecting them when they
are upright. The timbers or needles for such a
structure are usually four by four inches, and as
long as necessary — very commonly twelve feet.
Each of these is equipped with an iron ring at its
upper end. They are set and removed when occa-
sion arises, either by a derrick carried on a boat
and worked from above the dam, or by a derrick
run on a tramway on the trestle itself, and are
carried on cars to the abutment. The advantage of

191

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

the wooden needles, however, is that a flood com-
ing unexpectedly and filling the river to over-
flowing lifts them from their position and sweeps
them clear, automatically relieving the river of
obstruction. The needles, being chained, are not
lost. With such a dam the flow of water at mid
stages is regulated by taking out one or as many
needles as may be required; and the dam may be
made very tight by placing strips, at extreme low
water, on the cracks between needles.

The A-frame dam, the simplest of all these
structures, and much in favor in Hungary, con-
sists of nothing but the trestles which supported
the needle dam, their upstream surfaces widened,
and themselves set so close together that when
erected they strike sides, forming a complete dam.
They are lowered by a chain, and lie nested
athwart stream like the trestles. Such a dam
is sometimes used for a regulating weir on the
Ohio.

A beartrap dam is an American invention, in
which the head of water between the pool above
and the stream below is made to control the
height of the crest of a long leaf. The dam con-

192

BEARTRAP GATE AT LOCKPORT

DISCHARGE OF THE CHICAGO SANITARY CANAL OVER THE
BEARTRAP GATE

THE OHIO, AND CANALIZATION

sists essentially of a triangular prism having the
foundation for one side, and to this is hinged two

' O

flaps or leaves for the other sides. These form
between them a prismatic chamber, which under
pressure tends to extend indefinitely in section
toward a rectangle. To do this it must lift the
crest of the dam, which is the free end of the
upstream leaf. The pressure on the inside is fur-
nished by hydrostatic head either from the stream
or from a pressure tank, and is controlled by a
valve. The dam is simple of operation, and in
some modified form is usually employed as a part
of the regulating weir or for passing ice and logs,
as it requires little effort to open and close it,
and it permits an even sheet to go over the top
without widely opening the channel. In the drum
weir type but a single leaf is employed, and this
is lifted or lowered by the pressure of water in a
drum or conduit underneath. In either type the
dam at high water is collapsed upon the bottom.
The most used type of movable dam, however,
is the Chanoine wicket, of which are built the
navigable passes and some of the weirs on the
Ohio. This dam dates from very ancient times,

193

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

but attained its present estate little more than a
century ago through the agency of a French
engineer. It consists of a series of panels, usually
made four feet wide, set edge to edge across the
stream, their feet braced against the dam-sill, and
their surfaces supported against the pressure of
the stream by an inclined prop, to which they
are hinged somewhat below their middle point.
As originally employed they were intended to
stand until a rising flood put upon this larger
top half a greater pressure than on the lower
portion ; whereupon they would topple to a hori-
zontal position and offer little obstruction to the
flow. To prevent opening a whole river when the
emergency did not require it, smaller wicket gates
were set near the top of each panel, which would
thus open at the proper time and spill some of
the flood. Difficulties in manipulating these
toppling wickets, however, brought about the
present system of positive operation.

Under this system each wicket in a dam rests
against a horse and a prop, hinged together, the
horse also hinged to the sill, and the prop ex-
tending downward and backward, with its foot

194

THE OHIO, AND CANALIZATION

trapped in an iron casting called a "hurter."
This hurter, as used on the Ohio, consists of a
channeled iron casting, having at the proper point
in the channel a ledge for bracing the prop, and
a little forward of this a projection so set that if
the foot of the prop be dragged forward to this
point it is automatically thrown over into a second
groove, which runs clear of the bracing ledge to
the back of the hurter. Each panel is hinged to
the prop, and carries two chains, which may be
operated from a boat or may, more properly, be
managed from and held fast to a collapsible
bridge above the dam resembling a needle-dam
trestle. To set such a dam, the attendant raises
his bridge, and going out on it draws up the
chain leading to the bottom of the first wicket.
The panel which is lying on the bottom behind
the sill rises in a horizontal position on the horse
to which its prop is hinged. As it rises the foot
of the prop comes forward in the latching groove
of the hurter. When it has passed the latch and
dropped to rest, the operator releases that chain,
and with a quick pull on the other draws the head
of the wicket up, and the foot of it falls against

195

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

the sill, where the pressure of the current holds
it. Thus panel by panel the dam is set, until the
whole stream is checked. For very low water,
strips or timbers are set against the cracks be-
tween panels.

To lower such a dam, or to open enough of it
to regulate the flow, the operator draws in on the
bottom chain till he tilts the panel up, and chains
it in that position. If he wishes to lower it alto-
gether he pulls it still further, the whole comes
forward on the horse, the prop drags into the
other channel of the hurter, and when released it
all falls back behind the sill, prostrate upon the
bed of the stream. In some such dams, but not
commonly in America, there are used " tripping
bars," devices running across the stream through
all the hurters in such a way that as they are
twisted or pushed along they automatically trip
and release, one after another, the several props,
and thus lower the dam without the use of the
bridge. In large works, however, they do not
commonly operate satisfactorily.

In a navigable stream of such magnitude as
the Ohio, a collapsible dam is usually made in

196

THE OHIO, AND CANALIZATION

several portions separated by stone abutments;
and these several parts are not always of the same
mechanical type. The principal parts beside the
lock chamber are the pass, the log or ice chute,
and the weir. The pass is the navigable high-
water channel. In it the longest wickets, resting
on the deepest sill, are used in order that the full
navigable depth may be obtained. The log and
ice chute is frequently a beartrap, as explained
before, and is a short section for passing through
the dam floating matter which it is injurious to
retain. The weir is the regulating part of the
dam, built of shorter and therefore more easily
manipulated wickets than the pass, and often in
several sections, with shorter wickets as the shore
is approached. As high water nears, the weir
wickets are the first manipulated, to allow an in-
creasing flow through the dam ; and as the pool
below fills up, it becomes increasingly easy to
lower the larger wickets of the pass.

The locks, by which vessels are sent around
such dams at low stages, consist of short canals
reaching from deep water above to deep water
below the obstruction, and in this canal, usually

197

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

between concrete walls, a portion is set off as a
chamber by gates especially constructed to with-
stand a head from the upstream side. In old style
locks and in many modern ones these gates are
in pairs, closing toward each other and meeting
to form a sort of arch, upstream, against the
pressure. On the Ohio, however, where the locks
are 100 feet wide, a new type was invented to
make the work possible. These gates are large
caissons, sliding in and out from a recess in the
walls and extending unbroken across the lock.
By conduits underneath the floor of the lock,
and by means of gates controlled from the abut-
ment, water can be admitted to the chamber from
the upper end and released to the lower. The
chamber being full, it has an equal height with
the pool above the dam. The upper gate being
opened, a vessel passes in. The gate being then
closed, the water is allowed to escape to the lower
pool, the vessel sinks to that level, and on the
lower gate being opened moves out to the lower
reach. These locks on the Ohio are the widest at
present in operation, but not the longest, being
100 by 600 feet.

198

CHANOINE WICKETS, OHIO RIVER, DAM NO. 13, SHOWING THE
SUPPORTING MECHANISM AND SILL WHILE IN COFFER

DAM AND LOCK ON THE MONONGAHELA

THE OHIO, AND CANALIZATION

The plan of constructing a deep channel in the
Ohio by this means was officially recommended,
as I have said, in 1875, by Majors Weitzel and
Merrill. Their report accompanying the recom-
mendation was one of the most complete docu-
ments of the sort ever filed in the War Depart-
ment, for they had studied European rivers and
their dams with the closest scrutiny. Their recom-
mendation, had it been acted upon, would have
given us what we shall long lack, a navigable
Ohio ; for they proposed that the steep stretch be-
tween Wheeling and Pittsburg be taken in hand
at once, thirteen locks (the necessary number)
be constructed the first year, and thirteen dams
the next two years. In four years, or by 1880,
the work would have been done, the advantage
of large contracts secured, and the stream opened.

Caution, however, carried the day against the
project. The Davis Island dam, number 1 of the
series, was constructed as an experiment, re-
quiring many years of sluggish effort. Since
1885 it has made a harbor for Pittsburg, and
has proven entirely satisfactory, in principle,
though it has been several times modified for

199

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

experiment and in response to the demands of
commerce. In recent years the dams have been
ordered, one by one, until now nearly all of the
original thirteen have been ordered, six or seven
are done, and some are nearly done. Below
Wheeling the plan has been adopted of erecting
first the dams below the mouths of tributaries,
to back pools up into those streams; and below
large cities to make harbors, as at Cincinnati. In
all, about twenty dams have been authorized or
surveyed for. In the course of this work the
depth sought has been increased from six feet
to nine, the lock- walls have been raised, and the
outgrown pass wickets of the old dams have been
handed on to make the weirs of the new. In the
end, when the Ohio is entirely slack- watered,
there will be required between sixty-five and
seventy-five of these dams. It was at first esti-
mated that they could be built, including locks,
for $750,000 each; but experience has demon-
strated that the cost runs well over a million, and
it is safe to count on $1,250,000 at each site
before they are completely done. This can be
considerably reduced if many are built at the

200

THE OHIO, AND CANALIZATION

same time. The latest estimate made by the
engineers calls for $63,000,000 to complete the
project; and it is probable that at the outside
$75,000,000 will see the Ohio with its channel
cleared and regularized and canalized from Pitts-
burg to Cairo. Our bill against the main stream
of the Ohio to the present time is approximately
$22,000,000.

With a long series of dams ordered or in
place, and with the nine-foot survey completed,
the Inland Waterways Commission has now been
called upon to consider a new report on a gen-
eral reservoir system put forward by Mr. W. 0.
Leighton, Chief Hydrographer. This plan is an
enlargement of Ellet's, by the terms of which
storage is to be provided not only above the
forks, but on the Cumberland, the Tennessee,
and all the smaller streams, in a hundred or
more immense reservoirs of such a great capa-
city that they will hold in emergency a whole
year's flow of the river, five thousand billion
feet. The same objections to the use of the old
reservoir sites still maintain; but their added
value is now partly offset by the necessity of

201

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

storing and developing all the horse-power of
these flood waters, in order to supplement our
remaining supplies of coal. The bed of the Ohio
is so steep that to try to maintain nine-foot navi-
gation in an open channel above Huntingdon,
West Virginia, would be useless. The swift cur-
rent would be too great for navigation. To that
point, even if storage is adopted, dams must be
used. But the plan presented to the commission
looks to an open river most of the way, the main-
tenance of a steady flow, and the prevention of
disastrous overflows. It will be, of course, eked
out with generous tree-planting on the now bar-
ren mountain-sides.

This problem involves the development of
large water-powers. An additional feature of the
Ohio improvement is the problem of the utiliza-
tion of power at the movable dam sites. When
all these dams are raised to the nine-foot stage,
there will be at low seasons, and all the year
during a steady flow, a great power developable.
This will probably, however, not become economi-
cally possible until power becomes more valuable
than it is to-day.

202

THE OHIO, AND CANALIZATION

Yet with the development of the forests of
Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and with the
establishment of great storage dams, the ten-
dency to drown out these dams and to give
them almost no overflow at low water will be de-
creased. The period during which they stand
will be lengthened, and in the end it may be-
come possible to replace them with permanent
dams offering continual water-power ; or, at least,
to develop from these movable dams a power
which will be available at least three hundred
days in the year.

The Ohio River is not leveed as is the Lower
Mississippi, and the flood problem is a serious
one, becoming to the mill towns more serious as
the wealth of the valley increases. In most places
the width to which it can overflow is so slight that
there is not, except in the case of big cities, suffi-
cient taxable property endangered to support a
levee system. Reservoiring will largely diminish
this danger, and save the valley probably several
million dollars every year.

Just as it is in itself one of the principal tribu-
taries of the Mississippi, so the Ohio forms the

203

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

backbone of a smaller system of rivers, some of
which rank well with the largest in Europe. Of
these the chief in length and volume are the
Tennessee and the Cumberland, which flow into
it on parallel courses near its mouth. These are
two of a large number of streams draining the
Appalachians on the western slope. In common
with the other streams of this region, they will
in time be improved by forestation on the high-
lands and by the establishment of reservoirs.
They are streams of great water-power possibili-
ties, and when improved completely will furnish
navigation from their mouths well up into the
mountains in which they have their origin. Work
on the improvement of these rivers for the pur-
pose of navigation has been carried on for about
forty years, and in that time locks and canals
have been established on the Tennessee, around
a long series of rapids and shoals through north-
ern Alabama. This improvement limits the size of
vessels which can now navigate the stream. The
development of water-power has, however, given
a new turn to the manner of treating the river,
and before many years have elapsed the canal will

204

THE OHIO, AND CANALIZATION

be paralleled by a river thoroughly developed by
dam and pool for deep and wide vessels. This sec-
tion of the Tennessee flows through the iron and
milling country of northern Alabama, and main-
tains a heavy traffic. The traffic, however, is
small below there because of irregularities in de-
velopment. When the present plans have been
carried out, steamboats drawing five feet can pass
up the Tennessee to Chattanooga, and drawing
three feet can ascend a considerable distance
above Knoxville. Eighteen-inch navigation will
eventually extend a long distance above the
present head of navigation.

The Cumberland is also being improved, by
locks and dams, to a five-foot depth, but by one
of the inexplicable mistakes of government is
blocked by locks five feet narrower and eight
feet shorter than those of the Tennessee, so that
boats built for the latter river cannot use it. The
Cumberland is now navigable for a considerable
distance above Nashville, at fair stages of the
river, and will eventually offer an outlet for the
coal of the region from Burnside to Jellico. Some
of its tributaries, as the Green River, the Rough,

205

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

and the Barren, are also improved by locks and
dams.

Higher up, the Ohio receives the Kentucky
River, on which navigation is provided by a long
series of locks and dams, offering an outlet for
the coal lands of the interior of the state; the
Big Sandy, which with its Tug and Levisa forks
is improved with needle dams and locks ; the
Kanawha and the Little Kanawha, coal-bearing
rivers similarly treated; and, at its head, the
Monongahela and the Allegheny, both slack-
watered streams, and both leading from rich
manufacturing and coal producing streams. On
its right the Ohio first receives the Beaver River,
which is being turned into a canal to connect the
Ohio with Lake Erie. Below this, the principal
navigable tributary is the slack-watered Muskin-
gum. The White and the Wabash offer inlets
into Indiana and Illinois, but though considerable
sums have been spent upon them, neither has
been systematically taken in hand, and neither is
now commercially navigable. Yet on all these
rivers the new hydro-electric developments and
the new conservation knowledge indicate an early

206

THE OHIO, AND CANALIZATION

day of commercial utilization. It is estimated by
Mr. Leighton that i£ the designated reservoirs in
the Appalachians be built, the streams tributary
to the Ohio in that region will increase their
commercial horse-power more than 3,000,000
horse, if the reservoired store is used for twelve
months, or 6,000,000 if it is drawn on only six
months each year.

CHAPTER X

LAKES-TO-THE-GULF

FROM the earliest days of the exploration of
the West, from the time of La Salle and
Marquette down through the succeeding gener-
ations of French and Spanish and English and
American explorers, there have never been lack-
ing those who sought to connect by navigable
channels the waters flowing into the Gulf of
Mexico with those flowing into the St. Lawrence
River. It was by a route easily opened that Mar-
quette himself first reached the Mississippi, pass-
ing from Green Bay up the Fox River, and by
way of a flooded portage into the Wisconsin
River, and so down to the site of the modern city
of Prairie du Chien. It was by another portage
that he returned to the Lakes, coming up the
Illinois River to its forks, thence following the
Des Plaines to a depression in the hills which has
since come to be known as the Chicago Divide,
and there camping near a low flooded prairie by

208

LAKES-TO-THE-GULF

which his boats crossed to the Chicago Kiver and
Lake Michigan. By still another route La Salle
made at least one of his journeys, crossing from
what is now called Sag to the Calumet River, and
on another journey he entered the St. Joseph
River, and, ascending that to a point near the pre-
sent city of South Bend, crossed a short portage
to the Kankakee, and so descended to the Illinois.
A favorite route with some of the coureurs de
boiSy and one which was followed probably by
Membre and some of the other early mission-
aries, was by way of the Brule River from Lake
Superior, and from its headwaters down the St.
Croix to the Mississippi ; and still another easy
route was by the ascent of the St. Louis, and a
portage by a series of ponds over to the Upper
Mississippi itself near its great bend.

There were as many more easy connections
between the two water systems farther east, by
way of the Maumee and the Wabash, the Maumee
and the Miami, the Cuyahoga and the Muskin-
gum, and easternmost of all by the Beaver and
the Grand. Of them all, the most direct, the most
natural, and the most promising was, and still is,

209

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

that through the Chicago Divide which Marquette
commented on, and through which La Salle deter-
mined to open a canal for bateaux. This route
par excellence is referred to now when one speaks
of the route " from the Lakes to the Gulf." But
in the century during which our waters have been
developed, many of the minor routes have been
opened by small canals, some of which will a
century hence doubtless be large factors in our
transportation; and the Beaver-Grand route is
now being cut through by a twelve-foot barge
canal, to bring Pittsburg in touch with the iron
ore traffic of Lake Erie.

To begin at the most northern of all these
proposed channels, the route from Duluth to the
Upper Mississippi by way of the St. Louis Elver
has several times been surveyed, and estimates
have been made of the cost of a six-foot barge
canal of the old type. The purpose of this water-
way, of course, is to give St. Paul and Minne-
apolis direct water connection with the Lakes.
Minneapolis produces about fifteen million barrels
of flour annually, the greater part of which goes
east by the Lakes, which are now reached by rail.

210

LAKES-TO-THE-GULF

The cities are also the gathering depots for an
immense amount of wheat which is on its way
east ; and they are not only heavy consumers of
coal, but are distributing depots for coal to the
Northwest. In addition, package freight of all
sorts moves in large volume between these cities
and the Lakes.

A barge canal connecting these points by way
of the Upper Mississippi and the St. Louis
would require an ascent of nearly 600 feet from
Lake Superior to Summit level, and a consider-
able descent on the other side, accomplished, how-
ever, chiefly in the Mississippi. Such a channel
would be closed by ice from the 1st of November,
or the end of that month at latest, until the
middle or end of April. During the remainder
of the year it would accomplish a great deal in
relieving traffic conditions of the Northwest.
Unfortunately the enormous water-power of the
St. Louis, which should have been conserved in
any development of this route, has passed into
corporate hands ; and nearly all that of the Upper
Mississippi has also been alienated ; the drainage
problems of northern Minnesota, however, are

211

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

large, and could easily be made tributary to such
a commercial development.

The route by the Fox and the Wisconsin has
always been one to draw the attention and to
arouse the imagination. In the early years of
Western settlement a private company was incor-
porated to develop navigation this way by means
of a lock and dam system on the Upper and
Lower Fox, and a canal connecting the upper
part of the stream with the Wisconsin at Portage.
After the company had expended considerable
sums the general government took over the work,
and spent in all something more than $4,000,000
upon it. The result was, as far as river improve-
ment for navigation is concerned, a total failure.
This failure was one of method rather than one
inherent in the route. In the first place, the
rapid deforestation of Wisconsin caused the river
which bears that name to become filled with sand
swept in from the deforested areas, giving rise
to shifting obstructions, which no reasonable
amount of dredging could keep cleared away.
The deforestation caused the water supply of the
stream to become so unreliable that heavy floods

212

LAKES-TO-THE-GULF

in spring time were followed by almost complete
drouth in the summer and fall, in which no steam-
boat channel even of two-foot depth could be
maintained. The canal which connected with the
Fox was a small affair, and there was no type of
steamboat of such peculiar structure that, being
at the same time narrow enough for the canal
and shallow enough for the river, it could profit-
ably carry cargo. As a result, the government
some years ago abandoned the Wisconsin as a nav-
igable stream, and looked upon the sum therein
invested as a total loss. The Lower Fox, how-
ever, remains a stream in successful use, and the
many dams which cross it furnish some of the
greatest water-powers in Wisconsin.

The various connections which the canal-build-
ing epoch of the forties and earlier years saw
constructed through Indiana and Ohio, notably
the Maumee-Wabash-Miami and the Cuyahoga-
Muskingum routes, do not properly come up for
consideration within a volume upon river con-
trol. With the exception of a few short reaches
in which the river-bed was used, notably ninety
miles of the Lower Muskingum, they were essen-

213

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

tially canal construction, presenting no differences
or advantages over other long inland canals of
their type, — shallow and providing only for
small barges carrying about 250 tons each. Each
route required something like 600 feet of eleva-
tion, making passage long and tedious, and each
has been gradually abandoned with the decrease
of water transportation in general. With a revival
of this mode of transit, each route offers the pos-
sibility of ultimately becoming an economical
carrier of considerable larger size than at present
exists.

The route by way of the Beaver valley, from
its confluence with the Ohio just below Pittsburg,
and the Mahoning to Niles, and thence by canal
through the divide to the Grand Kiver or some
one of its branches, has lately come into promi-
nence through the granting of a charter by Con-
gress, under the terms of which a private corpo-
ration is constructing the channel and is allowed
to charge toll upon it. This corporation has been
allowed to do many of the things which the gov-
ernment engineers will ultimately require to do
in preparing streams, that is to say, to provide

214

LAKES-TO-THE-GULF

for storage, and to develop the water-power inci-
dental to their work. For this purpose they may
enter upon the route with right of eminent do-
main, and may construct — and are constructing
— a channel in the Beaver by means of locks and
dams, not less than 12 feet in depth and 150 in
width. A new harbor is to be constructed on the
shore of Lake Erie, not far from Ashtabula, and
large terminals erected for the transfer of freight.
The company has the right to construct a second
navigable canal up the Shenango to Sharon in
Pennsylvania, and to divert stored flood water
from the Allegheny at Franklin, Pennsylvania,
for summit level.

The real purpose of this canal is of course to
connect Pittsburg with Lake Erie, and to cut still
one more charge out of the freight bill on iron
ore from the mines to the mills. At the same
time it will reduce the coal shipping bill from
Pittsburg to the upper lakes. In connection with
the Erie Canal and the improved Ohio, it will
offer eventually a nine-foot barge route from New
York City to St. Louis and New Orleans, and an
inland passage of much importance from the

215

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

northeastern interior to the gateway to the Pan-
ama Canal.

In this regard, however, and in its general use-
fulness, it is outstripped by the proposed fourteen-
foot waterway by way of the Chicago Divide.
Chicago stands in a depression in the rocky rim
of the Great Lakes, at a point where the waters
of Lake Michigan once poured out by what is
now the Des Plaines and the Illinois River to the
Mississippi. Tilting of the plane or recession of
the waters has changed this outlet, but the de-
pression still remains so low that in high water
canoes and bateaux have been floated over it, and
in making the present cut through it there was
in no place any earth encountered more than
fifteen feet high above the standard elevation of
Lake Michigan. Unlike the other routes sug-
gested, therefore, this one requires elevation by
lockage on one side only, coming toward the
Lakes, the transfer being one from a summit level
at one end to a bottom level at the other. The
question of water supply is solved by the fact
that the summit is Lake Michigan.

The Chicago Divide is about thirty miles across
216

LAKES-TO-THE-GULF

from the shores of Lake Michigan to the point
where the land drops abruptly away into the
valley of the Des Plaines and of the Mississippi.
Part of the way, on the lake side, this is made up
of clay and of glacial drift ; but for a large part
it is a clear, soft limestone, easily worked and,
when removed, of good marketable quality for
concrete, for building, for the manufacture of
lime, and for a flux with iron ore. As early as
1817 a canal through the divide was proposed,
some years before the federal government had
bought the site of the present city from the In-
dians. And in 1826, before Chicago was more
than a tiny collection of hovels, Congress passed
a canal bill, providing that alternate sections of
public land in a ten-mile strip might be sold by
Illinois to pay for the construction through them
of the " Illinois and Michigan" canal.

Under this enabling act, which owed its pas-
sage to a tie-dissolving ballot by John C. Calhoun,
then president of the Senate, Illinois eventually
undertook the work, and in 1846-47 completed
a small canal, providing for four-foot navigation,
from La Salle on the Illinois to the Chicago River

217

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

at Bridgeport, about 96 miles. This canal had
a summit some distance above Lake Michigan,
which must be supplied by pumping. Gradually
in succeeding years this little canal was rebuilt
and enlarged until it provided for vessels six feet
deep and carrying about 250 tons each. In this
condition, in the years immediately succeeding
the war, it carried an enormous traffic, and was
one of the chief elements in building up Chicago
and St. Louis, and in solving the early problems
of getting to market the grain of the newly
opened West. In a single year the canal tolls
amounted to more than $300,000. Soon, how-
ever, the canal began to find itself unable to
compete with the railways, and in the years fol-
lowing 1880, and especially 1890, it has fallen
into disuse and disrepair.

Ever since 1871 Chicago has been sending
down this old canal a great volume of sewage
drawn from the south branch of the river, into
which the sewers of most of the city drain. As
even this outlet was inadequate and sewage still
ran into the lake, Chicago's citizens began, some
time before 1890, to agitate for a new canal to

218

LAKES-TO-THE-GULF

carry away all the sewage and, by preventing con-
tamination of the lake, to reduce the deaths from
typhoid, then a terrible scourge in the city.
Though it appeared to be the ultimate solution
of this matter to build a sewage disposal system,
far-sighted business men directed sentiment in
such a way that the public voted for and author-
ized a deep ship and sanitary canal, extending
through the rock barrier to the valley of the
Des Plaines. This was begun, carried swiftly to
completion, and by 1899 offered a channel 162
feet wide in rock and 200 in earth, 24 feet deep
at all points, from the Chicago River to a spill-
way in the valley of the Des Plaines. The work as
then completed cost the city about $35,000,000.
From that time to the present Chicago, with
the assistance of the entire valley, has labored
for government aid to extend this canal as a
fourteen-foot ship canal to the Mississippi, and
so to New Orleans and the Gulf. Congress has
authorized, and the engineers have carried out,
surveys showing the cost and practical character
of the extension as far as St. Louis, and more
recently it has received the approval of President

219

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

Roosevelt. It is entirely probable that in the new
era of waterway development it will be one of
the first projects carried out.

The scheme for this waterway as at first out-
lined provided for an extension of the canal from
its present terminus through the city of Joliet, by
canal and locks, to the Des Plaines River in Lake
Joliet. Thence it was to follow the bed of the
stream, cleared of rocks and deepened by dam-
ming, to its confluence with the Fox at Ottawa,
and thence to follow the Illinois to the Missis-
sippi. The plan further contemplated, and with
this amendment is reported to Congress, a dam
across the Mississippi at Alton, just above the
Missouri, to deepen that stream to fourteen feet,
and for a canal thence around the Missouri mouth,
on the Illinois side, about eighteen miles to a
point just above the Merchant's Bridge in St.
Louis. From there the Mississippi is to be devel-
oped to fourteen feet by the methods herein-
before described.

Since this plan was outlined many changes
have been brought about in the general water-
way situation, and especially in the relation be-

220

LAKES-TO-THE-GULF

tween waterways and water-powers, which have
done much both to retard and to accelerate it.
The river into which the Sanitary Canal empties
itself is not only very variable, but in summer
time extremely shoal, and flows in a steep and
rocky bed. The question of water supply solves
itself because of the peculiar nature of the Chi-
cago Sanitary Canal, which is primarily for sewage
dilution, and which therefore is designed to pro-
vide, without interfering with navigation, a flow
of 10,000 cubic second feet of water from Lake
Michigan. The addition of this amount of water
to the Des Plaines gives it enough, even in lowest
stages, for the development of fourteen-foot and
even eighteen-foot navigation. This navigation
must be accomplished in the rocky river, how-
ever, by the use of large dams, and a channel in
the river-bed cut out of solid rock and forming
practically a canal, with short canals around
several falls.

From the end of the Sanitary Canal at Lock-
port to the level of the Illinois River at TJtica
there is a descent of 147 feet, the greater part
of which is accomplished at Joliet, and the rest

221

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

of which can be concentrated principally at Mar-
seilles and Utica. In normal conditions the powers
at these sites have been hardly worth developing,
but with the added flow from the Chicago chan-
nel they have become extremely valuable, notably
that at the so-called " dam number one " in Joliet,
where a variable 700 horse-power was turned into
a reliable power of 10,000 horse. Grasping the
value of this power too late, — for its develop-
ment should have been from the first one of the
chief objectives of the canal construction, — the
authorities of Chicago and those of Illinois are
now working together to devise and put into
operation some scheme by which they may regain
control and develop these powers, using the in-
come derived therefrom to pay off the bonds on
the whole investment. The power here is ex-
tremely valuable, the manufacturing sites along
the way have the double value of water trans-
portation in both directions and the trunk line
railways of Chicago reaching everywhere, and it
is probable that the waterway, as it develops, will
become the site of one of the greatest manufac-
turing districts in the country.

222

THE LOCK AT HENRY, ILLINOIS RIVER

CHICAGO SANITARY AND SHIP CANAL

LAKES-TO-THE-GULF

From Chicago to La Salle is a little less than
100 miles. From La Salle to the mouth of the
Illinois is more than twice the distance ; but in it
there is practically no rock to be encountered.
The Illinois is a river of gentle slope and of con-
siderable breadth, and retains the contour of its
bottom and the stability of its banks better than
any other stream of its size and character in the
country. Before the construction of the Chicago
channel it had been improved by means of grad-
ual appropriations extending over about forty
years, by which the state constructed two dams
and the federal authorities two dams across it,
with a lock 75 by 350 feet at each dam. These
dams have been lowered since the Sanitary flow
was turned on, and are now probably unneces-
sary to maintain the seven-foot navigation which
the Illinois supports at all stages. The bottom is
of such character, however, that it can be easily
dredged, and of the total cost which will be re-
presented by the deep waterway when complete,
only a small portion is for dredging to fourteen
feet from La Salle to Grafton.

Before the Civil War, as the Northwest de-
223

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

veloped, there began to be agitation for a water-
way connecting the Illinois at La Salle with the
Upper Mississippi at Rock Island. At first the
plans were for a ship canal seven feet deep and
wide enough for upper river steamboats. During
the next thirty-five years several surveys were
made of this route, by way of Bureau Creek to
the summit, and thence by Hickory Creek and
Green River to Rock River, and so to the Missis-
sippi. The canal was finally undertaken under
the name of the " Illinois and Mississippi," or, as
it is more commonly called, the "Hennepin"
Canal, and was dragged slowly to completion, the
water being admitted to it in 1907, after an ex-
penditure of about $7,000,000. The canal as
completed rises abruptly out of the valley of the
Illinois, in a series of locks aggregating more
than 150 feet, and descends more than 90 feet
on the other side. It is but 7 feet deep, and its
locks are but 30 feet wide. Though it may in
time develop some use as a feeder for the larger
waterways, it is built upon lines which were out-
grown about the time the first survey was made,
forty or fifty years ago.

224

LAKES-TO-THE-GULF

The total expenditure upon the Chicago Sani-
tary Canal, the Illinois River, and the Hennepin
Canal route to date is as follows : —

Whole cost to date, Illinois and Michigan Canal $13,000,000
Cost of all Sanitary Canal Work . . . 50,000,000
Illinois River (state and nation) . . 3,000,000
Hennepin Canal 7,500,000

$73,500,000

The estimated additional cost of the fourteen-
foot waterway from Chicago to St. Louis is
$30,097,462, of which Illinois has agreed to pro-
vide $20,000,000.

CHAPTER XI

THE TRIBUTARIES

T71NGKOSSED with the story of the engi-
JLJ neering development and the prospect of
proper conservation of our streams, I have not,
up to this point, indicated one of the most vital
principles upon which all this river improvement
work should be based. That is the standard-
ization of all the channels, according to their
capacity and the nature and demand of the traf-
fic which they are to bear. This has been the
less necessary in so far as we have been dealing
with the main streams, because our projects for
these are all based upon an effort to obtain from
each river the deepest and widest channel pos-
sible. On the tributaries, however, and especially
on those which are developed for navigation by
other than open channel methods, this standard-
ization becomes of the utmost importance.

Before projects for these rivers are adopted,
they should be related to a general plan of im-

226

THE TRIBUTARIES

provement, which should provide certain standard
sizes of channel and of opening through chan-
nel obstructions. Thus, on rivers of given width
and depth, all the locks should have openings
and length of the same standard, so that vessels
might ply freely from one to another ; and any
vessel built for one part of a river could be cer-
tain of finding room to pass anything in the
lower courses, at least, of the same stream.

Such a standardization requires a thorough
survey of all the now navigable or possibly navi-
gable streams, with a view to our new knowledge
of the possibilities of stored water and steadied
flows, and a survey of the probable types of
traffic which will be served by the stream. These
rivers should then be designated as Class A, Class
B, and so on, each class representing a certain
width and depth of channel, each river, perhaps,
having different classes of increasing importance
as its lower reaches were approached. It should
then be certain that a vessel navigating upon the
upper reaches of any river would find all the locks
below open to her, and that a steamboat which
was employed on Class B rivers in Wisconsin in

227

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

summer could be sent with positive assurance to
some Class B river in Louisiana for the winter.
Barges of standard size, then employed for cargo,
could be loaded at principal ports, with assurance
of carrying cargo unbroken to destination.

As yet no such measure has been taken in
our country, and there has not been prepared any
complete survey from which the amount of navi-
gable water within this system can be estimated
accurately. Several governmental departments
having authority have prepared individual esti-
mates ; and a more accurate report has been made
to the French government by its Minister of
Marine. I have, however, compiled a considerable
table of these waters from the figures given in
the report of the Chief of Engineers for 1902,
when a report on all projects was made to Con-
gress, revising this considerably by subsequent
reports ; and have compared this with a report
made to the Secretary of the Treasury some years
ago by Mr. A. D. Anderson, and a bulletin pub-
lished in the Tenth Census, the work of a Mr.
Vivian. The guesses of these at times exceed the
total length of the river they are considering. In

228

THE TRIBUTARIES

others, their errors follow upon the heels o£
Humphreys and Abbot, and in others they are
the steamboat-men's easy guesses. I present them
in the following table, together with the total ap-
propriations to June, 1906, which have been made
for these rivers as far as I have been able to col-
lect the figures, with which I have included the
main rivers : —

RlVEB.

A y-'iakJ

£">&$,
"Ml /K

JeJvH* /So (»

' Missouri

3127
2161
1021
986
884
779
759
609
474
384
365
303
280
295
271
270

228
213
212
200
180
175
160
160
130
123

116

110
105
94
94
92
80
80
75
64

2915
2134
967
1000
771
300
650
578
300
306
183
200
261
25
144
225

173
85
100
175
285
100
62

180

102
261

96
130 (h)

2378
2152 (a)
965
679
463
391
652
609

300
120
200
151
37
100
223

240
138
250
227
171 (e)
180

112
26

2$ (i)

131
261
90
91
81

72
240
61

$12,101,000.00
102,796,924.47
20,912,639.93
2,749,637.00
1,947,375.00
1,188,215.00
6,580,551.00
3,277,000.00
(b) 10,000.00
1,166,954.00
820,000.00
687,600.00
(c)
140,500.00

(*)
2,346,650.00
7,447,995.47
jd) 1,774,500.00

172,100.00
660,673.20
200,000.00

(f) 3,748,914.93
(g)
(c)
1,781,766.63

(<1)
5,814,596.13
3,051,495.74
4,421,437.00
252 ,800.00
(<0

35,500.00
(m)

land 2
2audl
1
1
2andl
Iand2
2

2audl
2
2
1
land 2
1
2

1
1
1
2
1
1
2
1
1
2

2
2
2

2
1

1
1

Mississippi ....
Ohio

Red

White

Tennessee ....
Cumberland ....
Yellowstone ....
Washita

Wabash . . . .

Boeuf .....
Minnesota ....
Sunflower ....
Illinois

Hennepin ....
Yazoo

Bartholomew . . .
Black (Ark.) . . .
Green and Barren . .
St. Francis ....
Tallahatchie . . .
Wisconsin ....
Cache

Allegheny ....

Deer Creek ....
Monongahela . . .
Kentucky ....
Kanawha

Muskingum . . . . '
Tensas

Iowa

BigHatchie. . . .
Rock .

229

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

RIVER.

Black (La.) ....
Chippewa ....
St Croix

61
55
57

(n)
57
120

$161,750.00
30 000 00

Big Horn
Clinch

50
50

126

(o) 132 500 00

jLittleRed ....

Dauchite
Obion

49
44
35
33

90
65
65

15,000.00
27 500 00

Forked Deer . . .
Galena ....

29 (p)

36,500.00
170 102 00

Gasconade ....
Big Sandy ....
Tug Fork ....
Levisa Fork ....
Elk (W. Va.) . . .
Gauley

6
87
100
86
45
27

107
26
58
88.5
45
12

100,500.00
1,302,020.00

1
2
2
2
1

Guyandotte ....
Licking (Ky.) . . .
Hiwassee
Holston .

80
90
43

18
50
35
60

21,500.00
16,000.00
(o)
(o)

1
1
1
1

French Broad . .
Rough

29 5

140,000.00
105 500 00

1
2

Little Eanawha . .
White (Ind.) . . .
Tradewater ....
Bayou LaFourche . .
Bayou Plaquemines .
Homochitto ....
Duck River ....
Little Tennessee . .
Buckhannou . . .
Cheat

27
22
110
110

67
13
48
90

48
13
41
105
30
60
68
13
24.5
49

378,418.00
120,000.00
16,500.00
255,000.00
1,775,000.00
20,000.00
(o)
(o)
5,500.00
13 00000

2andl
2
1
1
1
1
1

Yallabusha ....
Other Yazoo waters .
Obey River ....
Caney Fork ....
Bayou Black . . .
Bayous D'Arbonne
and Courtableau
Little and L'Anguille
Fourche la Fave . .
Petit Jean ....
Little Missouri . . .
Saline

90
170
68
92
14

68
123
44
45

63
100

(e)
44
45

(n\

1
1

Subtracting major

16,283
6,579

15,140
6,241

12,986.5
6,718.0

$193,055,515.80
45,305,650 00

streams leaves minors.

9,704

8.899

7,268.5

A is Mr. Anderson's estimate, B is Mr. Vivian's, and C is compiled from the re-
ports of the Chief of Engineers. D is the cost of the improvements to date as
nearly as it can be compiled from the reports, and E is the method of improvement
— 1 being open channel, and 2 slack-water.

The following notes refer to letters in the tables : (a) This includes only the
Grand Rapids reach above Minneapolis. Eventually there will probably be 2500

230

THE TRIBUTARIES

miles navigable, (b) Declared not navigable by Congress after construction of
Northern Pacific Railway, (c) All these bayous are lumped together in cost col-
umn under Bayou D'Arbonne. (d) Included under Tazoo. (e) This estimate for
the St. Francis is based upon a recent report of the Board of Review. The river is
sometimes considered navigable for about 289 miles at high water, with two
branches, Little and L'Anguille rivers, offering considerably more, (f) This in-
cludes the cost of the Fox and Wisconsin improvement, excluding such parts as are
only of value at the Lake Michigan end. The Wisconsin is not now navigable, (g)
Cache River is included under White of Arkansas, (h) Mr. Vivian puts Tensas and
Macon together, (i) This is the Upper Allegheny, on most of which there is no up-
stream navigation, but it is listed by the War Department as navigable for rafting
and floating downstream, (j) This one of the " Other Tazoo waters," listed lower
down. The War Department lists the whole Yazoo system at about 800 miles, but
accounts for only a part of that, (k) Current is included in Black of Arkansas,
(m) A part of the Hennepin route, (n) Mr. Vivian includes the Black of Louisi-
ana with the Washita. (o) The cost of all the minors of the Tennessee has been
put together under the Clinch River, (p) 195 miles to Jackson, Tennessee, was
formerly included in this, but is not now used, (q) Tug and Levisa are included
under Big Sandy. Elk and Gauley are included under Big Kanawha.

This list is necessarily incomplete and imper-
fect. So, also, is that of the cost of the improve-
ments. There are several items of state expendi-
ture which do not here appear, notably those for
the Muskingum ($1,300,000), for the Kentucky
($750,000), and for the Green and Barren
($657,000), the state expenditure on the Illinois
(about $1,000,000), and the Chicago Sanitary
Canal ($45,000,000), making a total of $241,-
762,515.80. Many rivers which are slack-watered
have indefinite appropriations for maintenance,
which are only to be found in the report of the
Chief of Engineers year by year, and which in
the case of the Muskingum have already footed
up to more than $1,000,000. With these, how-

231

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

ever, and with many of the smaller annual appro-
priations for snagging, we are not actually con-
cerned, as they are bills for running expenses
rather than for channel development. It is also
difficult to draw the line among the bayous of
Louisiana, and to determine which of them are
properly here to be included and which left out
as not properly parts of the system.

In the development of the lesser streams the
engineers have followed the same methods that
have been used on the larger rivers. The steep
mountain streams which flow into the Ohio have
required general slack-watering, and those which
come down on the south of the Ozarks into the
lowlands of Louisiana are now being similarly
treated. In connection with this slack-water-
ing, the channel is snagged, rocks are removed,
and contraction and training works are erected
where needed. Streams which do not need locks
and dams are improved by open channel work.
There are a number of streams, such as the Ar-
kansas, included above, which by this method
do not yield navigation more than a part of the
year.

232

THE TRIBUTARIES

Greatest of all the tributaries in navigable
length is the Ked River, the last to enter the
Mississippi from the west. It is also one of those
which have offered the most complicated prob-
lems. In the early days this river was obstructed
by a great " raft " of timber, brought down by
its current, into which it had been hurled by
caving banks. This raft formerly extended as
far down as Natchitoches, or even lower, and its
removal by Henry M. Shreve about 1838 marked
the beginning of river work in that department.
Shreve cut a way through with his snagboat at
an expense of $300,000, against ten times that
sum estimated to be the cost, and extended navi-
gation a long distance up the stream. From that
time until near the opening of the Civil War the
government kept the stream fairly clear, the Red
River bottoms were partially leveed, and the
Red River trade was the richest in all Western
steamboating. Before the actual outbreak of the
war, however, the work was suspended, and in
the course of the next few years the raft again
accumulated, being now above Shreveport, and
entirely covering the surface of the river for

233

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

thirty miles or more, augmenting this length
annually. In 1872, when federal attention was
again turned to the stream, the raft extended
for 32 miles, and as an obstacle to navigation
effectually seconded the efforts of 200 steam-
boat hulks which were sunk in the channels and
on the bars of the river.

The existence of this raft in early days caused
the floods of the Red to seek other outlets than
through the lower course of the river, and many
bayous were created through the bottom lands
into which the current frequently shifted, so that
the channel was unstable to a degree not met
with on any other water. Many of these bayous
had been closed by levee lines; but the war pe-
riod saw these broken, and it became the task of
the river improvers to confine the lower reach of
the river to its own channel — chiefly by closing
Tones's bayou, near Shreveport — and to open
the upper reaches by cutting out the raft. The
closing of the bayou proved a long and costly
work, but was at length accomplished. The raft
was first cut through and then entirely removed,
though timber still accumulates rapidly. Opening

234

THE TRIBUTARIES

of the raft gave high-water steamboat channels
to Fulton, Arkansas, 508.6 miles from the mouth,
and snagging cleared the high-water way an
additional 170 miles to the mouth of the Kiami-
chi River in the Indian Territory.

The removal of the raft had the effect of
causing the bottom to cut 10 feet at its head
and 3 feet at Shreveport, establishing a more
even slope and draining many thousands of acres
of wonderfully fertile alluvial lands above it,
adding to the wealth and healthfulness of that
country.

On the Lower Red River the falls at Alexan-
dria have been the subject of considerable work,
deepening the low- water channel from 2.5 to
5.5 feet. Dredging, revetting, chute-closing, and
snagging along the river have gradually im-
proved the stream so that now, when there is
one foot on the gauge at Shreveport there is
three-foot navigation to Fulton, and at standard
low water there is 3 feet to Montgomery, 162.5
miles; 2.5 feet to Shreveport, 320.5 miles; and
2 feet to Fulton, 508.6 miles from the mouth of
the stream. One hundred and fifty miles of new

235

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

levee and one hundred of enlargement, fifteen
per cent of it by the federal authorities, have
been built, to the further improvement and
steadiness of the channel.

The chief affluent of the Red is the Washita
and Black, — but one river, — which is navigable
under varying circumstances at moderate and
high stages to Camden, Arkansas, 360 miles. A
new project, recently adopted, calls for slack-
water in this stream, and appropriations have
been made for the first two of nine locks and
movable dams, which, when the channel work
has been correlated to them, will give six and a
half feet of water to Camden at all stages.

Next in order of magnitude of the tributaries
come the Tennessee and Cumberland, already
described, and then the Arkansas and White,
which enter the Mississippi through a common
mouth some distance below Memphis. The Ar-
kansas is a stream in some ways resembling the
Missouri, having a scanty rainfall on a wide basin,
and but a small run-off. The low water of its
upper reach in summer is abstracted for irrigation
purposes, leaving its bed almost dry; so that

236

THE TRIBUTARIES

though Congress has adopted a plan calling for
navigation as far as Wichita, 770 miles, there
seems no prospect that it will be obtained. Theo-
retically, the head of steamboat navigation is now
at Fort Gibson, on the Grand River, about two
miles from the Arkansas; and in recent years
barges, and even steamboats, have ascended in
good seasons to Muskogee. A proposition has
been made, and has found favor in Oklahoma, to
dig a canal from the capital city to the Arkansas;
and if that is done, some means will probably be
found for extending navigation that far up the
river. But navigation in this shallow stream is at
the best uncertain. In spite of much work done
on a project adopted years ago, to secure six feet
of water as far up as Little Rock, no such chan-
nel has as yet come into being ; and the best that
has been obtained in recent years at moderately
low water, which is the best stage which prevails
when the demands of commerce are the heaviest,
have been to give extremely shoal navigation to
Little Rock and a regular three-foot channel to
Pine Bluff. In 1901 there was no navigation
above Shoal Creek, 88 miles below Fort Smith,

237

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

|| and only 12 inches for a long distance below there.
The Arkansas costs large sums for snagging, and
eventually, if open channels are obtained, must
be extensively revetted and contracted.

The White Kiver, its chief affluent, has quite
another history. From its small shed in the Ozarks
it draws a steady flow, which enables navigation
on it to be extended by slack-water, so that the
head of navigation is now put at Forsythe, Mis-
souri, 505 miles up the stream. This is, however,
only for moderate stages. There is now at low
water 3 feet to Jacksonport, 264 miles ; 16 inches
from there to Batesville, 37 miles ; and a slack-
water project was undertaken a few years ago to
give 5 feet to Buffalo Shoals, 89 miles. There
being no outlet for this five-foot channel, and
no means for using it, nor any contemplated
except an occasional high water tendered free
by a beneficent Providence, and no towns at
the headwater, and no freight to carry, and no
boats on the river, Congress, after spending some
$684,109.78 upon the project, has abandoned it.
One of the dams has been given over, free of
charge, to a private lighting company at Bates-

238

THE YAZOO CUT. ARTIFICIAL CHANNEL FOR THE YAZOO INTO
CENTENNIAL LAKE

V1CKSBURG CANAL. ARTIFICIAL MOUTH OF THE YAZOO FROM
CENTENNIAL LAKE TO THE MISSISSIPPI

THE TRIBUTARIES

ville, to be used to develop electric power, and
now permission is given to another individual to
build a third dam, in its proper place, for the
purpose of securing the power there.

One of the most important tributary systems
of the Mississippi, on account of its rich country
and its easy channels, is the Yazoo, which, ac-
cording to the estimates of the Chief of Engi-
neers, offers 800 miles of channel. Of this, 240
is in the Yazoo itself, a good three-foot water at
all stages ; a large proportion is available at low,
and the rest at very moderate stages. This is in
a rich cotton country; the waters have been im-
proved at little cost (chiefly by snagging and
dredging and some contraction), and the whole
system has been and is kept continually and
profitably in use.

A different story is to be told of the Wabash
and White rivers of Indiana. These streams,
which were formerly much used in connection
with the canal system from the Ohio to Toledo,
have been improved at a total cost of more than
one million dollars to the federal government, in-
eluding a dam and lock at the Grand Rapids of

239

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

the Wabash. In spite of this, however, there has
been no means adopted of providing low-water
depths in the Ohio and the lower reach of the
Wabash, and there remains to-day a few miles of
three-foot channel above Grand Rapids, and a few
miles of twenty-inch water below, with better
depths at better stages, and no connection with
the outside world when the Ohio is below seven
feet. The White River is now to be electrically
harnessed.

On none of these systems so far described, ex-
cept the Yazoo, is there anything like completion
obtained, or enough done to indicate what will
be the ability of the engineers to maintain the
depths for which they are striving. On the upper
waters of the Ohio, where slack-water is general
and of long standing, we find rivers completely
organized and well operated, though frequently
with distressing lack of system.

The Ohio itself is formed by two slack-watered
streams. The Monongahela was dammed and
pooled, with locks, three quarters of a century
ago, for the purpose of getting coal out of the
mountains. From those pools has always come

240

THE TRIBUTARIES

the greater part of the trade which goes down
the Ohio to the Mississippi. Those dams and
locks have recently been acquired by the federal
government. They carry five feet of water to the
West Virginia line. Above that the government
some time ago constructed two locks and dams to
carry vessels to Morgantown, and now six dams
have been added, which provide coal-boat water
as far up as Fairmount.

The Kanawhas, the Big Sandy, the Kentucky,
and the Green and Barren have all been similarly
treated, and as far as their internal reaches are
concerned are in good working order, with five or
six feet of water in all sections. At their mouths,
however, they are blocked by the unimproved
Ohio, and will not attain their proper usefulness
for many years. The tributaries of the Upper
Mississippi have without exception been improved
by the open channel method. The Fox and the
Chippewa have been abandoned, and most of
the Minnesota has been given up, only a short
stretch, patronized by excursion boats, having
been dredged and contracted. The St. Croix has
been kept open for the use of lumbermen, and

241

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

on account of the multitude of logs drifted down
it no other navigation is possible.

One cannot long study the story of these
tributary waters without being struck with the
lack of any comprehensive or orderly plan for
their development and utilization. This has partly
grown, as I have said in an earlier chapter, out
of the early necessity by which each was hastily
developed as a necessary means of communication
for the early settlers. But that day has long gone
by, and the illogical methods persist, with the
result that the obstacles to through commerce are
being perpetuated, until they will reach a stage
at which their removal will be enormously costly.
To understand this we have only to study the fol-
lowing list of locks mounted or in adopted pro-
jects on the slack-water streams, not considering
the open channel work which, we must believe,
will some day be brought into relation to them.

THE TRIBUTARIES

RIVER.

NUMBEB.

LOOK CHAMBERS.

Length
(avail-
able).

Width.

Built.

Depth over
lower sills.

Monongahela .

158

1841

5.6-7

215

1848

* These are dou-
ble locks, one of
first 4 beside each
of next 4.

1*
1*
1

225

277
165.5

56
56
50

1886
1883
1856

3.4

159

1853, 1886

4-5.5

160

1879

7.15

161.7

1882

177

1905

Allegheny . .

286.2

1897

289.6

1903

Great Kanawha

271

1887

8.67

272

1882

274

1880

6.5

313

1886-1898

6.08-8.25

Little Kanawha

125

1867

3.5

126

1891

Muskingum . .

160

1836-1891

4.5-5.5

366

1890

158

35.5

1836

5.4

Big Sandy . .

158

1904

6-7.3

158

1896

Green ....

138

1835

1-6.8

145

1899

5.1

Barren . . .

140

1835

4.5

Rough . . .

123

1896

5.2

Kentucky . .

145

1844

147

1891

148

1897-1900

Ohio River . .

14 (to be more)

600

110

building

" (Louisville)

350

1873

4.8

Tennessee . .

340

1897

285

1889

Cumberland

280

building

6.5

Wabash . . .

214

3.5

White, Ark. .

147

building

Washita . . .

350

building

6.5

Illinois

350

Mississippi . .

325

78.5

Osage ....
Lakes-Gulfpro-

220

building

posed . . .

600

243

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

The absurdity of such a lack of system is too
apparent on the face of it to need pointing out.
Nevertheless, there are some features even in this
medley that are especially aggravating. Thus,
on the Tennessee, the single lock at Colbert's
Shoals is made of ample size, while those at the
Muscle Shoals, through which all steamers must
pass to reach Chattanooga, and which when the
plan is complete will be on a waterway of even
depth, are twenty feet narrower and fifty-five feet
shorter. No matter to what extent the channel is
improved, therefore, the smallest of these locks
limits the size of steamers ascending to Chatta-
nooga, and the extra cost of the larger lock must
be justified by the local traffic between it and the
Muscle Shoals. Nothing can justify the engineers
for shutting the Chattanooga reach against ves-
sels of equal size with the lower section. On the
Monongahela the presence of larger locks at
headwaters than lower down is only an evidence
of intention to enlarge the lower locks later, the
old ones having been built by a company; a
similar excuse may avail on the Great Kanawha.
But no explanation is at hand for the action of

244

THE TRIBUTARIES

the engineers in making locks 286 by 56 serve
the Allegheny, while on a similar stream of equal
depth, the Kanawha, they find 313 by 55 a suit-
able size. On the Green and Barren they seem
to have adopted a size about 145 by 36, but on
the Rough, a tributary, with the same depth, they
have cut this to 123 by 27. The Cumberland is
given locks 5 feet shorter than those of the
Tennessee, and eight feet narrower, thus shutting
out from this neighboring traffic boats made to
accommodate the Chattanooga trade. The Wa-
bash lock conforms to nothing else, the isolated
White River locks are in a class with those of
the Green and Barren, the Kentucky sets another
standard. In fact, there is a wide variety, but so
arranged that only a narrow boat of little length
has choice of the streams for traffic.

The day has passed when the United States
can afford work of this character, or can afford,
either, to allow these streams to be blocked with
costly masonry which does not develop their
trade.

There also remains to be solved the problem of
the ownership of the power in these navigable

245

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

streams. To whom shall it belong? And who
shall pay for the making of it ? In order to ap-
proach the question with some information, Con-
gress has required from the Corps of Engineers
a report on the water-power developed by the
dams between St. Paul and Minneapolis, to de-
termine how much is available and at what peri-
ods, how it can be developed without injuring
navigation, and how it should be disposed of.
But long before the question had been brought
up there, it had been met and passed lightly by
on the Tennessee, the Cumberland, the White,
and other streams. On the Tennessee at Muscle
Shoals and at the other steep places, there are
large possibilities for water-power at points where
it is much needed. The common plan of opera-
tions in such a case has been for Congress to per-
mit some party chartered by the state to erect a
dam across the stream, on condition that if it in-
terferes with navigation Congress may erect a lock
adjoining it and control the flow of water for the
benefit of shipping. On the Tennessee, however,
where the steepest shoals are passed by canal and
lock, an investigation is under way to determine

246

THE TRIBUTARIES

to what extent slack-water may be developed in
the river itself, and whether the dam-builders can
properly be made to carry out each project. Far-
ther up, at Scott Point, or Hale's Bar, where there
was open channel navigation, Congress has per-
mitted a private corporation to dam the river, on
condition that it provide a suitable lock, the Corps
of Engineers providing plans and oversight. This
will much improve the situation at and above
Chattanooga, at slight cost to the government. It
would seem that in all cases in which a water-
power privilege was owned by private persons,
and there was already a fall which obstructed
navigation, the power owners might very properly
be allowed to build their dams and the federal
engineers to build the locks, after the manner
anciently followed. On the other hand, where
Congress has created a water-power by slack-
watering a stream to better an ancient open chan-
nel, as in the Upper White River, there should
be compensation to the government for the power
used, which should go toward paying for the dam.
No such compensation is provided for in the act
which gives away the power on the White at

247

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

Batesville, it being provided that the private per-
sons interested may take possession of this gov-
ernment dam, construct races and other parts
needed, and draw the water for power, giving the
nation so much as is needed to operate the lock,
and being restricted only to the point at which
their withdrawal of water would interfere with
navigation. The project of slack-watering on the
Upper White has been withdrawn, because there
is at present no reason for its fulfillment. When
it is extended down to Jacksonport and the work
again undertaken, this question must be met
squarely, and should be settled with a decision
either to allow the dams to be built by and at the
expense of companies which are to operate the
power, or to have the power development go hand
in hand with the dam construction and the rev-
enue from the sale go toward the reimbursement
for the outlay.

On the Cumberland, again, this question must
be met, and on the upper waters of that river
Congress has solved it by allowing a navigation
company to establish lock and pool navigation
and use the power at the dams. On the Missis-

248

THE TRIBUTARIES

sippi above Minneapolis every dam privilege is
granted without recompense, although the owners
get the full benefit of the steady flow from the
expensive reservoirs created by the government.
They are only required to leave room for a future
lock. On the Ohio the question has not yet been
publicly raised. The movable dams are not tight,
three or four inches being left between wickets
to allow for bending and getting out of align-
ment. But by the use of needles at these gaps it
is possible to make the dams almost tight, and to
reserve a great deal of the regular summer flow
to be passed through turbines. This power would
be intermittent, but at times exceedingly valuable.

Taken all together, the water-powers upon our
navigable streams are very large, and there will'
be many more streams added to the navigable
list when the demand for electrical power has
so increased that more rivers can be 'profitably
slack-watered. The two things should never be
separated in the minds of the engineers who
are planning the work.

So much, then, for the minor streams flowing
into the great trunk lines of the Mississippi. Like

249

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

the greater streams, they can never come to their
best working out until the navigable waters of
America are considered as a whole by some gov-
ernment organization, and are developed, not at
the annually changing whim of Congress, but by
the steadily growing and continually unified plan
of an understanding commission or commissioner.
It may take us some years yet to come to it, or
the temporary commission which President Roose-
velt has appointed may bring us sooner to it. But
the years that elapse before the accomplishment
need not be wasted, and indeed may be made
very profitable if they be used for the study of
the best means of making the best use of those
rivers we have and of those we hope to get.

CHAPTER XII

THE UTILIZATION OF THE CHANNELS

f MHE purpose o£ this volume is not to discuss
JL in any detail the new plans for the conserva-
tion of water under which the future developments
of the Mississippi channels will be carried out,
and which I hope to take up in a second work,
nor to describe the methods by which the chan-
nels have been and will be best turned to com-
mercial account. Nevertheless, it does not appear
suitable to close it without a short sketch of the
rise and decline of river traffic, and an indication
of some of the causes of success and of failure
therein.

In the earliest days river traffic was carried on
by drifting boats, built of timber or rough lum-
ber, most of which went down to New Orleans
from the interior loaded with native produce,
and were broken up and sold for wood at New
Orleans. In addition, there were "keel-boats,"
in model not unlike the standard barges seen to-

251

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

day on European rivers, which returned upstream
under the impetus of sail, oar, and cordeling rope,
and occasionally of side- wheels turned by horse-
power. As early as 1802 the steamboat began to
be discussed on the river, and in that year one
was built for a Mr. McKeever, who had secured
a privilege from the Intendant at New Orleans.
His boat was destroyed before being finished,
however, and aside from a few experimental mod-
els on Fitch's plan on the Ohio, no steam vessel
floated on the river until the building of the first
Fulton steamboat in 1811, the New Orleans.
The Fulton-Livingston monopoly secured from
the Louisiana legislature a monopoly of steam
traffic on the lower river, but a young pioneer,
Henry M. Shreve, having designed a boat more
able than theirs, attacked them in court and de-
feated them.

Thereafter, under the stimulating enthusiasm
of Shreve, who made many inventions and gave
them without patent to his countrymen, the Mis-
sissippi River steamboat advanced more rapidly
toward perfection than any other similar craft in
the world ; so that in twenty years there were

252

UTILIZATION OF CHANNELS

several hundred high-pressure steamboats plying
the stream, carrying fabulous cargoes at high
freight rates. They were all built after practically
the same model, designed by Shreve, and were
like the antique packets to be seen on the river
to-day. Their engines were for the time magnifi-
cent, using even at that epoch steam at 160 pounds
pressure. But the boats themselves had many
faults. Their immense radial wheels weakened
their hulls by continual pounding upon the water.
Their hulls and light decks, built flimsily to save
weight, were liable to destruction by fire, and
burned so rapidly when the overheated boilers
started combustion as to cause many terrible dis-
asters. The light wooden hulls were easily pene-
trated by snags, wrecking the boats. And the
channel, from which eventually the Shreve snag-
boat cleared most of these obstructions, was so
irregular and so unreliable that the boats fre-
quently ran aground and were either lost or
delayed.

Nevertheless, some of these vessels were ex-
tremely fast, making twenty miles an hour at an
early epoch ; and so long as slave labor continued

253

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

they were able to do business with fair economy.
Several new developments, however, came to the
river simultaneously. The war ended slave labor
and destroyed the prosperity of the South. It also
made for many years an entire end to river trans-
portation, caused the burning or sinking of hun-
dreds of steamboats, and the impoverishment of
all those who depended upon steam navigation
for a livelihood. At the same time a railroad for
the first time paralleled the river and another cut
across it, joining the Western fields directly to
the East.

During the continuance of the war it was ne-
cessary for the North to carry to the seaboard
ports and for distribution to the army the grain
of the new West. The exporting of this grain and
of meat stores was essential in order to maintain
foreign credit and to provide the expenses of the
war. Every energy was turned toward the crea-
tion and improvement of transcontinental lines;
and inventive genius, fascinated by this problem
of national safety and by the rich rewards from
success, turned toward the improvement of the
locomotive and to all parts of the railway service.

254

UTILIZATION OF CHANNELS

At the same time the Eastern harbors were be-
ing improved, deep steam vessels were supplant-
ing the old wooden sailing ships, and the South
was stagnating. Naturally, when the war closed,
the river was unable to recover. There was no
longer a fighting chance for it. It had at its
mouth the impoverished city of New Orleans,
and a channel through which only old clippers
drawing at best sixteen feet of water could pass.
In its export rates and facilities it could not com-
pare with any of the Eastern ports. Its terminals
had no facilities for handling freight. Slave labor
was abolished, but no substitute for it except the
free darky had been devised. The steamboat of
Shreve, with no new improvements of value, con-
tinued to be the river type. It could compete
with the railway of its own time ; but in a chan-
nel uncertain and dreaded it could not compete
with the quicker, safer, and in the end not more
expensive railway of the post-bellum days.

As a result, though the river traffic increased
rapidly after the war until about 1871, and pro-
duced such famous vessels as the R. E. Lee and
the Natchez, it became evident that it was only

255

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

a last burst before the death of the old-style
methods. The combination passenger and freight
boat, with its many handicaps, could no longer
hold its own. An endeavor was made to substitute
towed freight-barges carrying grain from St.
Louis to New Orleans, and after the opening of
the Mississippi mouth by Eads and the erection
of elevators at New Orleans this traffic consider-
ably increased. St. Louis arrived at a freight
movement by water of more than a million tons
a year, not including her local transfer service.
Still there remained several handicaps on the
service, some of which were and some were not
perceived by those interested. In order that river
traffic may compete with rail, it must have the
same facilities for cheap transfer, for quick hand-
ling, and for safety, as the railway has. On the
Mississippi there was not from end to end any
facility for loading and unloading package
freight except the brawny negroes, who still
"toted" by hand even the heaviest packages.
The boats were still the old sort, with no possi-
bility of receiving or delivering cargo except by
hand or trucks. Even the barges which carried

256

UTILIZATION OF CHANNELS

grain down from St. Louis were roofed over, so
that while grain might be piped into their holds,
the return cargo must be put aboard by hand.
There were no proper railway terminals at the
levees, and freight which went to and from the
river even at important terminal cities paid as
high as $1 or even $2 a ton for local teaming
charges.

There were no harbors along the stream, and
the packets employed the ancient method of pick-
ing up and delivering freight at every plantation,
much as if the trains from New Orleans to Chi-
cago should stop for cotton bales at every plan-
tation they passed.

Successful traffic on the river requires, just as
it does on rail, a complete separation of passen-
ger and freight service. Passengers must be
handled on swift, comfortable, through boats.
Freight requires more time, and a different type
of vessel. Nowhere on the river were these two
classes of boats provided, except in the case of
the St. Louis grain and the Pittsburg coal barges.
So St. Louis, handicapped by its own inefficiency,
saw its water traffic drop back to a third of a

257

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

million tons a year, all of which is local freight
for small towns below or for plantations. Only a
single movement of freight remained prosperous
on the river, that of coal upon the Ohio. The
movement of this in immense fleets — sometimes
60,000 tons at a time — on the high water, down-
stream, is one of the largest and cheapest freight
movements in the world, being carried out at a
cost less than the cheapest ocean freightage.
The empty barges are pushed upstream for
reloading, often with small cargoes of return
freight, and the transfers are accomplished more
quickly and economically than by rail. Yet even
this is still done in the old-fashioned way; and
there is no doubt that the present charges would
be cut in half by study and the use of modern
methods.

It is commonly said now that the railways
killed the through traffic of the Mississippi. This
is far from the truth. The traffic became mori-
bund from stagnation, by the failure of Ameri-
can men to apply to it the same inventive energy
and the same free use of capital which they ap-
plied to the railway service. But it was finally

258

UTILIZATION OF CHANNELS

wounded almost fatally by the uncertainty of
the channels and the inefficiency of the terminal
service ; two things which were tolerable when
there was no other route, but which became in-
tolerable as soon as the railway did away with
them. At any time within the last twenty years
the Mississippi might have been profitably re-
vived by the organization of a competent corpo-
ration large enough to systematize and develop
the trade, wise enough to provide modern ma-
chinery in all departments, and rich enough to
weather the first months of proving to the ship-
ping interests their sufficiency.

Now, however, we have arrived at a new
epoch. The turning of traffic toward the Gulf
has forced the railways into new efficiency. The
opening of Panama will more than double our
trade in that direction. The present certainty of
our channels, deeper than the best in Europe,
makes traffic easy. There only remains the proper
transshipping terminal apparatus and the proper
boats to be provided, and these channels of the
Mississippi will become the greatest carriers and
the greatest arteries of our internal system.

259

REMAKING THE MISSISSIPPI

They will not interfere with the railways.
There is and always will be freight enough for
both. A great mass of imports for the valley,
instead of being hauled overland from New
York, ought to, and will, be brought up the Mis-
sissippi to Cairo or to St. Louis for distribution.
The export produce of the valley ought to, and
will, go to New Orleans for its sea outlet. And
from St. Louis as a centre, to Pittsburg, to
Omaha, to St. Paul, to Chicago, will go the in-
terchanging goods of the whole heart of the con-
tinent by water ; increasing the prosperity of the
whole region, and increasing at the same time, as
experience has shown to be inevitable, the traffic
both of the railways which parallel them and of
those which, crossing them, distribute to the
hinterland the river-borne goods.

In another decade not three hundred thousand,
but more than three million tons of freight ought
to move in and out from the central point every
year. When the Chicago route shall have been
open two years, it should be carrying as much
more. And when the Pittsburg-Lake route is
open, and the Ohio canalization sufficiently com-

260

UTILIZATION OF CHANNELS

pleted, and the Missouri once more fairly in con-
trol, there should be almost an equal traffic going
from east to west and west to east, by Erie Canal
barges or by river barges, from the eastern sea-
board, through the canal, through the Pittsburg
way, down and up the Ohio, around by Cairo to
St. Louis, and so by the Missouri for distribution
from and collection in the great depots at Kansas
City, Omaha, and Sioux City.

Then the Mississippi will have come into its
own; and then all America, feeling the increase
of prosperity with this cheap and efficient inter-
nal circulation, will benefit from the belated and
irregular expenditures we have made upon the
Kemaking of the Mississippi.

INDEX

A-frame dam, 192.
Allegheny River, 206.
Arkansas River, hydrology, 21 ;
statistics, 229, 236.

Balise, 107.

Bankhead, 174.

Barges, for river use, 257.

Barren River, 206, 229.

Beartrap dam, 192.

Big Sandy River, 206, 229, 241.

Black River (Louisiana), 230, 236.

Breton Sound Canal, 117.

Burrs and gabions, 175.

Canal, Breton Sound, 117.

Canal, Chicago Sanitary, 219, 221.

Canal, Illinois and Michigan, 217-

Canal, Illinois and Mississippi,
224.

Canal, St. Louis route, 210.

Canal, Wisconsin, 212.

Canal, Wisconsin route, 210.

Canal and locks (Upper Missis-
sippi), 159.

Canalization, 80.

Canalization, Ohio River, 182-207.

Centres of traffic, 10.

Channel, 81.

Channel, methods of making, 36.

Channel sections, 47.

Channels, existing, 18.

Chanoine wicket dam, 193.

Chicago Divide, 216.

Classification of rivers, 227, 244.

Commercial history, 5.

Commission, Inland Waterway,
17.

Commission, Mississippi River, 64,

87, 96, 99.

Commission, Missouri River, 172.
Conservation, 17, 34, 101, 151, 155,

178.

Conservation (Wisconsin), 163.
Contraction, 94, 175.
Corps of Engineers, U. S. A., 14,

87.

Crevasse, 67.
Cumberland River, 205, 229, 236,

246, 248.
Cut-off, 86.

Dams, movable, 190 ; needle, 190 ;

A-frame, 192; Chanoine, 193;

beartrap, 192 ; weir, 197 ; pass,

197.

Davis Island dam, 199.
Delta, 102.

Des Moines Rapids, 158.
Des Plaines, 216.
Dike, hurdle, 94 ; abatis, 95, 175 ;

lighthouse, 141.
Drainage area, 7.
Dredging, 97.

Eads, James Buchanan, 107, 121,

129, 134, 144, 147.
Mlet, Charles, Jr., 187.
Erosion, 48, 83, 181.

Fascine mattress making, 88, 174.
Floods, 32, 36, 49, 51, 54, 203.
Fourteen-foot waterway, 219.
Fox River (Wisconsin), 208.
Fulton steamboat, first, 252.
Fulton-Livingston monopoly, 252.

263

INDEX

Gabions and burrs, 175.
Gauges, river, 206 ; readings, 32.
Grading, hydraulic, 91.
Green River, 206, 229.

Haupt, Hermann, 187.
Hennepin Canal, 224.
Hydrology, 19-33.

Illinois and Michigan Canal, 217.
Illinois and Mississippi Canal,

224.
Illinois River, 11, 21, 208, 224,

225.

Inland Waterway Commission, 17.
Irrigation, 179.
Itasca State Park, 152.

Jetties, 129,135, 138, 148.
Jetty mattresses, 136.
Jump, the, 106.

Kanawha River, 206, 229, 241.
Kentucky River, 206, 229, 241.

Lakes-to-the-Gulf routes, 162,
208.

La Salle, 209.

Levees, 36, 38, 51; building,
maintenance, and material, 60 ;
construction, 61 ; cost, 65 ;
grade, 65; crevasse, 67; de-
fense, 68 ; repair in flood, 71 ;
extent 75; revetment, 76;
future, 77.

Levisa Fork, 230, 246.

Lignite coal, 179.

Locks, 197; table of, 243.

M. R. C. grade, 66.
Mattie Atwood, the, 138.
Maumee-Wabash route, 213.
Merrill, Major, 199.

Minnesota River, 21, 157, 229, 241.

Mississippi, Lower, major bed, 34,

37; minor bed, 37, 79, 80,81,

86, 88, 92, 97.

Mississippi, Upper, 12, 21, 25, 29,

151, 166, 181, 249.
Mississippi River Commission, 64,

87, 96, 99.

Mississippi System, 1, 10, 13, 18,

19, 21, 23, 33.
Missouri River, 12, 21, 25, 30, 169-

181.

Missouri River Commission, 172.
Monongahela River, 206, 240.
Mouth of river, 102.
Muskingum River, 213.
Mussel Shoals, 244, 246.

Ohio River, 9; hydrology, 21,
24 ; character, 27 ; rapids, 158 ;
movable dams, 190 ; Davis Is-
land dam, 199; canalization,
182, 189 ; description, 183, 186 ;
financial statement, 201 ; regu-
larization work, 186 ; coal fleets,
258 ; water-power, 202 ; floods,
203; reservoirs, 203; tributa-
ries, 204.

Ohio-Erie Canal Route, 214.

Osage Reach, 176.

Overflow lands, 38.

Ozark Mountains, 203.

Pass, 197.

Passes, 103,111, 114, 193; head

of, 139.

Pass a 1'Outre, 107, 141.
Pittsburg-Erie Canal, 214
Plum Point, 50, 55, 96.

Rainfall, source and distribution,

22.
Red River, 21, 229, 233.

264

INDEX

Red River raft, 233.
Regularization, 80.
Regulation, 36.
Reservoirs, 35, 153, 180, 183, 187,

201.

Revetment, 88, 91, 174.
Rough River, 206, 230.

St. Anthony's Falls, 156.
St. Croix River, 21, 229, 241.
St. Francis River, 21, 43, 229.
St. Francis River Basin, 42, 49, 78,
St. Louis River, canal route, 210 ;

power, 211.
Shreve, Henry Miller, 108, 233,

252.

Silt, 44, 46, 48.
South Pass, 127, 130, 132.
Southwest Pass, 108, 148.
Stack Island, 96.
State work on rivers, 16, 231.
Steamboats, 252.
Storage, 151, 180, 187.
Suspended earth, 44.

Tennessee River, 204, 229, 236,
246.

Terminals, 259.
Traffic history, 251.
Tributaries, 226-242.
Tributaries (of the Ohio), 204.
Trunk Line routes, 10.
Tug Fork, 206, 230.

Upper Mississippi, 151-168.
Utilization of channels, 251-261.

Wabash River, 206, 229.
Washita River, 229.
Water-power, 35, 154, 155, 161,

164, 170, 181, 202, 211, 222,

245, 249.

Weather Bureau, 32.
Weir, 197.
Weitzel, Major, 199.
White River (Indiana), 206, 230.
White River, 21, 229, 236, 238,

247.
Wisconsin River, 21, 163 ; forest

reserves at headwaters, 164;

canal route, 212.

Yazoo Delta, 44.

Yazoo River, 21, 229, 239.

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A

UNIVERSITY OF CALTFQRNIA
LIBRARY

Due two weeks after date.

Mtt 30

FEB

-TEIVED BY

1095,'

188381.

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