4^^ c TRANS. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



of following the sinuosities of the river, they follow nearly straight 

 lines. On the Po the average distance between the levees is over 

 three miles, although occasionally much wider. 



Mills gives the distance between the levees on the Hoang-Ho 

 (or Yellow river) as averaging ten miles. 



The effect of this widening of the river during floods is to cause 

 a slackening of the current and a more rapid deposit of the sedi- 

 ment, gradually raising the bed until it again requires the raising 

 of the levees. 



Both the Po and the Hoang-Ho prove this, as on the former 

 in many places they exceed 30 feet and on the latter over 100 feet 

 in height. The inhabitants live in constant danger. Indeed, about 

 forty years ago the Hoang-Ho broke its northern bank about 200 

 miles from its entrance into the Yellow Sea, and, making a new 

 channel at an angle of about 45° with its former course, it poured 

 its whole volume into the Gulf of Petschili, nearly 300 miles in a 

 direct line northwest from its former mouth. In its change it de- 

 stroyed over one million of human lives and hundreds of millions 

 of dollars' worth of property. These disasters have occurred so 

 often that they have procured for it the name of the River of 

 Sorrow. 



The Po also furnishes numerous records of disasters by the 

 breaking of its levees. The recent disaster on the Theiss, at Sze- 

 gedin, Hungary, that is arousing the sympathy of the civilized 

 world, is a case in point. 



In conclusion of this part of the subject, I would respectfully 

 ask the advocates of the levee system to examine the arguments 

 I offer against its being made anything but a temporary measure 

 for present relief. 



The next plan to be examined is that adopted by the Govern- 

 ment engineers, and the different methods by which they have 

 endeavored to carry out their plans, which may properly be called 

 the lengthening theory^ as Captain Eads's may be called the con- 

 centrating theory^ Captain Cowden's the scattering theory^ and 

 Scott's the shortening theory. 



The work done at French Island, Scuffletown, and Cumber- 

 land Island, on the lower Ohio, and the dams at Establishment 

 and Devil's islands on the Mississippi, show the lengthening 



