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



Cairo to the Red river, from wlience to the Gulf the volume is divi- 

 ded and the channel relatively permanent and deep. Here, even 

 with a much flatter slope, the river is narrower and much deeper 

 than necessary for the largest vessels, reaching in places two hundred 

 feet and over, and yet it has been seriously proposed by the oppo- 

 nents of outlets to close the entrance into the Achafalaya, for fear 

 lest that steeper and shorter route might ultimately become the main 

 river and " New Orleans be left high and dry." As the city is on 

 a waterway only a few feet above Gulf level, having ample depth 

 except over the bars in the Gulf, there could be no possibility of such 

 a calamity unless the stream were dammed at both extremities and 

 the water pumped out. In fact it is on an arm of the Gulf, and if 

 all the sediment were diverted through another channel it would 

 greatly simplify the opening of the bars at the delta and improve 

 the maritime conditions of the Port of New Orleans, which would 

 soon be without a rival in this country. But, on the other hand, if 

 the escape into the Achafalaya outlet were closed, the next flood would 

 sweep away the city and all its inhabitants. This is the reductio ad 

 absurduvi to which the opposition to opening the outlets tends. 



In short, the weight of the evidence points most emphatically to 

 the conclusion that the building of levees materially increases the 

 rate of shoaling in the bed of the river and the evils resulting 

 therefrom. 



From the foregoing citations it is reasonable to conclude that the 

 eff'ect of the levee system, per se, upon the navigable channel is at 

 least negative, and hence the Commission has at length been forced 

 to resort to the use of powerful hydraulic dredges for the purpose 

 of temporarily increasing the depths across the bars during the sea- 

 son of low water. But so unstable are these cuts that in some 

 instances they are redredged from three to four times within a few 

 months during the low-water season, and the plant is of little use 

 during the remainder of the year. 



Moreover, under the Act of 1891, there would seem to be no 

 authority for Federal appropriations for the levees, unless they are 

 found *' to afford ease and safety to the navigation and commerce 

 of the river and to deepen the channel." It would also appear that 

 the transient dredging of the bars does not fall within the require- 

 ments of creating a permanent channel, nor does it operate to " pre- 

 vent destructive floods." 



But ^'self-preservation is the first law of nature," and the local 



