.Carson.] ^O [Dec. 3, 



eral Government is embodied in this report. Tlie National Government 

 accomplislied in twelve years the solution, both in principle and in detail, 

 of two great problems of internal improvement — protection from overflow 

 and the deepening of the water on the bars — pi'oblems which had baffled 

 all the eflbrts of four separate States for a century and a half. It is clear 

 that the power which rules at the source of the great river must hold the 

 channel, the delta and the mouths. Thus the Mississippi becomes at 

 once the promise, the pledge and the bond of Union. "Whoever is mas- 

 ter of the Mississippi is lord of the continent." The security of our 

 national integrity must then be found, not only in constitutional provisions, 

 congressional enactments, and in the coercive measures of war, but also 

 in identity of commercial and industrial interests, supported by the vast 

 possibilities of their indefinite development. 



To return to our text. 



An able reviewer says : "It is not too much to saj', after a careful 

 study of this report, that, as a work of science, it will not suffer by com- 

 parison with any in our language, Avhile it is, in its special department, 

 without a peer, and almost without a rival. It finds the whole subject of 

 river hydraulics a confused congeries of discordant theories and untenable 

 hypotheses, the offspring of insufficient generalizations. It leaves it a 

 determined science, the result of wide observation of facts, acute and 

 laborious combination and rigid and logical scientific analysis. Its authors 

 may well be proud of their work, for it places them in the front rank of 

 scientific men, and shows them to be the discoverers of a science, the 

 first fruits merely of which appear in their deductions of the laws which 

 regulate the fiowage of the Mississippi."* 



The work has been translated twice into German, twice into French, 

 once if not twice into Italian, and once into Hungarian. 



In 1885-'66, Humphreys published a voluminous report, entitled 

 Examination of the Mississippi Levees. In 1875, General Humphreys, then 

 the Chief of Engineers, published Memoranda relating to the Improvement 

 of the Entrance to the 3Iississippi River by Jetties,\ in which he enforced 

 his views in favor of a ship canal. Elaborate diagrams were annexed. In 

 1878, Humphreys and Abbot published a reply to criticisms upon their 

 work by Dr. Hageu, Director-General of Public Works in Prussia.:]: The 

 tone of foreign criticism, with this exception, had been uniformly favor- 

 able and courteous. 



We now pass from the consideration of Gen. Humplirej^s' labors as a 

 man of science to view him as a soldier in the field. In this respect hi.s 

 skill as an engineer was of the utmost value. He had a quick eye for 



* North American Review vt supra. 



t Being AppentHx S, 12, of the Annual Report of the Chief of Engineersfor 

 1875. AVashington, 187.i. 



X Pliysies and Hydraulics of the Mississippi. Reply to certain criticisms made 

 by Dr. Ilagen, Director-General of Public Works, Prussia. "Von Nostrand's 

 Eclectic Engineering Magazine, No. cix, January, 1S78, Vol. xviii. 



