Rl^XLAMATION OF THE SOUTHERN LOUISIAXA 

 WET PRAIRH: LANDS. 



By A. D. Morehouse," Office Engineer, Drainaje Investigations. 

 INTRODUCTION. 



In the conquest of the country the heavily timbered areas of the 

 East have been subdued, the vast prairie lands of the Middle West 

 have been settled, the riches of the west coast have yielded of their 

 stores, the waterless regions of the Great American Desert have 

 broken into verdure under the magic of irritration, and "drv farmihij" 

 has brought into productiveness immense sections of land once con- 

 sidered worthless. However, throughout the space of the several 

 centuries which have ^vitnessed tliis wonderful development, one of the 

 richest sections of the country's great domain has lain unused and 

 unproductive ; first, clothed in the mystery cast upon it by its Spanish 

 ownership, and later, since its acquisition by the United States, asso- 

 ciated in the rninds of men with visions of pestilential swamps, deemed 

 worthy only of neglect owing to the supposed difficulties of its recla- 

 mation, and never thought to be a region whose wonderful agricultural 

 possibilities would test the credulity of men. 



Within the last few years all this has changed and the alluvial prai- 

 rie lands of southern Louisiana are coming into their own. Formed 

 by the richest soils of the whole Mississippi Valley, brought down for 

 centuries by that river and its tributaries and deposited here by every 

 recurring flood, they form now "the most fertile agricultural lands of 

 the State, etjualed by few and surpassed by none in the worUl in pro- 

 ductive capacity,' as described by Doctor Ililgard in writing of this 



region. 



FORMATION OF THE LANDS. 



Recent borings to a depth of 3,170 feet in the vicinity of Houma 

 have failed to i)onotrate this layer of sediment, and at a depth of 2,400 

 feet pieces of fairly preserved wood have been encountered. Owing 



"This article is based on reports to the chief of drainage investigations, by A. M. 

 Shaw, C. E., New Orleans, La., and Prof. W. B. Gregory, M. E., Tulano University, 

 of their investigations made during 1909, and also upon data furnished by C. W. Okey, 

 assistant drainage engineer, who is continuing the work of this Office during 1910 in 

 southern Louisiana. All quotations not otherwise credited are from the above-men- 

 tioned reports, the portions referring to pumping equipment being by Professor Gregory 

 and the rest by Mr. Shaw. 



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