256 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



square miles of land overflowed in this basin, one half of which was 

 farm land; 60,000 people lived in the overflowed district and were, 

 therefore, inconvenienced; this number of people represents about one 

 third of the inhabitants of the basin. For some time previous to the 

 coming of the flood, the dwellers in the basin were preparing for the 

 flood season. Mounds were built for temporary refuge. Stationary 

 platforms were constructed to the same end. Rafts were also made. 

 The mules, horses and the feed were in many instances transferred to 

 places of safety, often to the lofts of the barns. Farm implements and 

 machinery were put beyond the reach of the water. That the warning 

 of the Weather Bureau was so extensively heeded explains why there 

 was no loss of life and little loss of stock. 



These three reports of the same thing are not so contradictory as 

 they sound. Each observer is looking for the things that sustain 

 him and his point of view, and is not directly interested in the things 

 that are foreign. One writer tries to establish the security of the basin 

 of the Yazoo against danger to life and property, because that is what 

 the board was created to do; a second writer tries to show how weak 

 the levee is, in order to press home the need of funds — and he makes 

 imminent danger to the basin area a means ; the third shows that with- 

 out the services of the branch he represents, the loss of property and 

 life would be multiplied. The first man is right to some extent, and he 

 is sustained by the second, who sees how near to each other danger and 

 safety sometimes approach — and they are aided by the third. I doubt 

 not but that the Weather Bureau may make as just a claim for the 

 credit of the progress in the Yazoo Basin as the River Commission. 



If the increasingly better reports influence a larger population and 

 larger expenditures in holdings within the alluvial basin of the Missis- 

 sippi, and the hopes of the engineers become realized to the extent of 

 normal safety, then, perhaps, the levee system can be called efficient. 

 Twenty years may be too short a time to consider the effect of the 

 system upon population, and at the same time we must remember that 

 but two thirds of the levee lines are completed, yet in this time the 

 commissioners report an increase of population over the Yazoo Basin 

 of over 100 per cent. It seems as if the people were becoming confi- 

 dent that there is ' security and permanence of protection ' in the work 

 that is in progress. Yet just so far as this confidence is expressed in 

 settlement within the area liable to overflow, so much further must the 

 levees protect beyond peradventure of disaster. In an increase of 100 

 per cent, in population and a decrease of 50 per cent, in mileage of 

 overflow, if the terms are commensurate, there is no gain ; if the terms 

 are incommensurate, there is as good a chance for a loss as a gain. 

 Just meeting the limit of strain, or preventing a break only by excessive 

 vigilance and energy, or saving from disaster by some mitigating cir- 

 cumstance is not the end to be aimed at ; but to be as reasonably sure as 

 it is given man to be that an overflow can not occur must be the plan. 



