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



Extensive revetments were also applied at Lake Providence and 

 other points on the river, but the difficulty of holding them against 

 the great pressure of the floods and their enormous expense have led 

 to their abolition. 



This Board of Engineers also reported on January 25, 1879, upon 

 the effects of a permanent levee system throughout the length of the 

 river below the mouth of the Ohio, not only upon the low-water 

 navigation but also of the benefits it would confer in affording pro- 

 tection and giving needed facilities to shipping, commerce and 

 navigation in the high stages of the river. 



The Board found that " levees have no direct action except when 



the water is high A glance at the sketches is sufficient to 



show that levees, even if they come into action every high- water 

 stage insteadof only every 'flood,' would have little or no influence 

 on the low-water navigation. They would leave to the river its 

 inordinately great width and area of shifting sands, and exert little 

 or no influence on channel formation. This would be the fact even 



if they everywhere followed closely the natural banks 



Closely adhering levees which in all high stages shall confine the 

 water which now escapes into the swamps would, by an increased 

 current action, accelerate the caving of the banks in the bends and 

 enhance the instability of the bed, which now not only makes the 

 work of navigation improvement so difficult, but is one of the most 



formidable foes to a permanent levee system The great 



obstacle to the improvement of the low-water navigation and to 

 maintaining a levee system is one and the sam.e for both, viz., the 



instability of the river from the caving of its banks We 



believe that the levee system, if undertaken, should be matured and 

 developed in connection with the navigation improvement.'' 



Hence it appears that this Board attached but little importance to 

 the use of levees as an aid to the formation of a navigable channel, 

 although recognizing their value in the reclamation of land. 



It relied upon the regulation of the channel by dikes and revet- 

 ments to correct the evils, but the past experience has destroyed 

 this expectation and compelled a change of policy which it may be 

 well to review as to its consequences. 



After the greatest flood to that date, which occurred in 1882, the 

 Commission reported that the controlling depths at low stages 

 between Cairo and Plum Point reach were but five and one-half and 

 six feet ; that a large amount of the revetment had been lost, and 



