72 HAUPT — THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER PROBLEM. [Feb. 19, 



and are both mutually dependent upon Government appropriations 

 for a successful issue. Works built to reclaim land are not gener- 

 ally well adapted to the creation and maintenance of channels, as 

 will appear from the experience cited later in this paper, and hence 

 the demand for a system of levees which shall at the same time pro- 

 tect the land and create a navigable channel is incongruous, and 

 will also be found to be opposed to existing statutes. 



Much greater progress in both directions, it is believed, can be 

 made if the two issues are divorced and separate plans be devised 

 for each on its merits. 



In this connection it will be found suggestive to note some of 

 the divergent views expressed by the speakers at the Levee Conven- 

 tion, held at New Orleans, October 27-28, 1903. 



It was said, but not by engineers, that *' protection can come 

 only from a national system of massive dikes .... the system of 

 reservoirs (is) utterly unfeasible and impossible." , . . . ''Outlets 

 are not only impracticable but harmful." A distinguished member 

 of the Mississippi River Commission stated: ''The progress of 

 levee extension has been a repetition of the early history .... 

 their upward extension has cut off more and more of the former 



overflow The necessary result has been to raise the flood 



level higher, and so make it necessary to build the levees higher. 

 .... The last flood has left behind it a record of mingled disas- 

 ter and success." 



On the other hand the Committee on Resolutions reported that 

 the investigations made by the Commission " wholly disproves the 

 notion, which still prevails to a considerable extent, that the imme- 

 diate effect of levee construction is to cause the bed of the Missis- 

 sippi river to rise. If this were true it would necessarily follow that 

 the levees would need to be continuously strengthened and elevated, 

 and thus all hope of protection would have to be abandoned." 

 Thus the case is prejudged by its advocates. 



But another close observer remarks : " You are not wise if you 

 do not see that the drainage from this vast basin (the Missouri) will 

 flow into your river faster than you can raise your banks, and the 



levee system will in time prove a failure If you go on 



and complete your levee system as you desire to, in less than 

 twenty years you will be clamoring for some system to get the silt 

 from the water back upon your lands for the fertilization of your 

 plantations." 



