1904.] HAUPT — THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER PROBLEM. 85 



Ferrara might be subjected to disastrous inundation should the right 

 dike break. This danger is diminished by a secondary series of 

 lateral embankments, placed at a considerable distance back of the 

 dikes, along the whole course of the river below Cremona. 



^' The Po at this point is two hundred and eighty-five yards wide ; 

 has a swift, turbid current, and long sand bars are seen from the top 

 of the dikes in the wide stretches, showing that in flood time a large 

 quantity of sediment too heavy to be carried in suspension is swept 

 along." 



To a disinterested reader this description conveys the idea that 

 the elevation of the surface of the Po has been a very appreciable 

 quantity during the last half century, and that the bar-building forces 

 have not been idle even in a stream of such paltry dimensions as 

 compared with the mighty Mississippi. 



L. F. Vernon-Harcourt says that — 



** Numerous breaches have occurred in the embankments of the 

 Po, resulting in the devastation of its valley ; and the flood level of 

 the Po has been so much raised that it has been decided not to 

 heighten the embankments, for fear of occasioning still greater dis- 

 asters Some of the embanked rivers in Japan have their 



beds as much as 40 feet above the level of the plains above which 



they flow They serve as a warning against the extensive 



raising of embankments to counteract the silting up of a river" 

 {Efic. Brit., River Eng., p. 588). 



In his argument against bed elevation the same United States 

 Engineer officer quotes a portion of a letter from another officer as 

 to the condition of the Hoang Ho, who stated that he had crossed 

 the Yellow river and visited the site of the great break, measuring 

 the levees at various points, but that he had no instruments other 

 than a hand-level and tape. '*But," he says, '' the conclusion I 

 came to in regard to the influence of the levees upon the bed of the 

 river was that they had nowhere filled it to a higher level than the 



adjacent country I cannot but believe that Abbe Hue was 



entirely mistaken in regard to the silting up of the channel, and 

 that an exhaustive survey would prove beyond doubt that no such 

 silting as to raise any part of the bed above the adjacent country 

 has ever taken place." 



It seems almost superfluous to call attention to the indirect admis- 

 sion that the bed has risen, but not so much as to reach to or above 

 the surrounding country, but it does not state that the flood height 



