AND ITS DELTA. 177 



contrary is often extremely injurious by its excess; the embank- 

 ments are frequently ruptured, and die crops of many planta- 

 tions are totally lost; the lives of the inhabitants are sometimes 

 in danger from the disruption of their levees in the night-time; 

 this however is but a rare case. The planters possess great expe- 

 rimental knowledge in the art of arresting the progress of this 

 devastation, and even entirely shutting up the breach which 

 has been made by the torrent of the Mississippi. They begin 

 their operations at some distance from tne extremities of the 

 breach at sound parts of the embankment, and, advancing in 

 form of a crescent towards the margin of the river, where they 

 know the land to be most elevated, they are often enabled to 

 shut out the river by this process, the greater part of the work 

 being thus carried on in water comparatively still; whereas every 

 inch of the breach is acted upon by a furious torrent, be- 

 coming every instant deeper and wider. A very great breach 

 happened during Governor Miro's administration about three 

 leagues above New-Orleans; an immense body of water advan- 

 ced on its rear and threatened to drown the city; the people 

 were discouraged. — The Governor called out all the assistance 

 which could be spared from town and country and placed him- 

 self in the row of common labourers, transferring his sod from 

 hand to hand, to those who, from their superior knowledge in 

 this species of hydraulic architecture, were employed in con- 

 structing the provisional embankment: they did not succeed 

 in completely shutting up the breach, but the quantity of over- 

 flowing water was reduced to one quarter, and the extremities 

 of the new levee were fortified until the retiring of the waters; 

 vast quantities of fish were precipitated upon the land, which 

 corrupted and filled the air with a pestilential stench. The 

 town was unusually sickly that season. 



The Mississippi is already celebrated on account of the salubri- 

 ty of its waters; in which respect, no doubt, it rivals the Nile, 

 It seems to be admitted (perhaps witiiout due investigation) mat 

 it possesses properties favorable to the multiplication of the hu- 

 man sp.cics, by promoting fecundity ; it is probably moreci rtain 

 that the uoo of its waters contributes to banish sev ral disorders 

 common m other countries: the gout vvuuiu he unknown were 



B b 



