66 Kansas Academy of Science. 



about twenty-five miles. Under provisions of a state law a drain- 

 age district was incorporated and all the land within it taxed to de- 

 fray the expenses of straightening the channel. A skilled engineer 

 was employed and improvements are now well under way. By 

 building a new channel twenty-three and a half miles in length the 

 present channel, seventy-three miles long, will be abandoned. It 

 is estimated that it now requires water three and a half days to 

 travel this seventy-three miles, while but eight hours will be re- 

 quired to travel the twenty-three and a half miles. This shorten- 

 ing of time is much greater than shortening of distance, because, 

 with no curves to encounter, the water will meet with less friction. 

 Again, the twenty-three and a half miles will have the same abso- 

 lute fall as the seventy-three miles, changing the fall per mile from 

 eight inches to about twenty-six inches, which of itself would al- 

 most double the velocity of the water. 



Suppose now we have a tlood-time in the upper Marais des 

 Cygnes river and that a given stage of flood is reached at the upper 

 part of the straight channel. Within eight hours this water will 

 have traversed the twenty-three and a half miles and be entirely 

 out of the way of succeeding portions of the flood, while under 

 previous conditions it would require three and one-half days to pass 

 the lower point of the new channel, and therefore more than two- 

 thirds of the early flood- water would be retained and added to the 

 later flood-water. Certainly such an improvement will have a very 

 strong tendency in the right direction. Could the Marais des 

 Cygnes river have its channel straightened from the vicinity of 

 Quenemo, in eastern Osage county, Kansas, to its mouth, below 

 Jefferson City, it seems probable that the floods would, be greatly 

 reduced. 



One of the phases of this subject that should be emphasized is 

 the possibility of using the waste energy of the water current to 

 help in cutting new channels. There is no more necessity of using 

 man power and steam power to do all the work than there is for 

 using like power to turn the turbine wheels at a water-power plant. 

 An engineer who fully understands river principles can devise 

 means for applying the current energy. 



DAMS. 



Since the flood of 1903 much agitation regarding flood causes 

 and flood preventions in one way and another has been connected 

 with dams across streams. Here again it seems to the writer facts 

 are not understood. 



The influence of a dam across a stream during a mild flood cer- 



