656 ANNUAL KEPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1916. 



The money appropriated for this section of the river since 1879 

 and expended under the Mississippi Eiver Commission amounts to 

 over $77,000,000. Owing to the method of keeping statistics, it is 

 difficult to determine the total commerce, as the river is divided into 

 districts, in each of which the commerce is recorded separately. The 

 sum of these would contain many duplications. Memphis to Vicks- 

 burg is a representative section, however, and would serve to show 

 the tendency of commerce. 



Tons. 



1902 1, 856, 339 



1903 1, 940, 026 



1904 2, 018,222 



1905 2, 040, 598 



1906 1, 855, 830 



1907 2, 355, 901 



Tons. 



1908 1, 661, 406 



1909 1, 252, 222 



1910 1, 071, 037 



1911 980, 386 



1912 1, 910, 854 



1913 1, 394, 789 



The insignificant use now being made of this magnificent stream 

 when compared with its capacity for transmission of freight is thus 

 apparent. On this river soon after the Civil War there were to be 

 found the most elaborate river steamboats ever seen in this country. 

 Passengers, package freight, grain, and cotton were hauled in great 

 quantity, and with much profit. In the ensuing years railroads were 

 completed along both banks of the river, practically the entire dis- 

 tance to the Gulf, and first passengers, then package freight, then 

 cotton, and finally grain have almost disappeared from the river. 

 Now the main items of commerce are logs, sand, and coal. If this 

 fine river could only have flowed from the neighborhood of Kansas 

 City to some point on the Atlantic coast we might have a different 

 condition to describe now, for the general direction of the greatest 

 traffic movement is east and west. 



At the mouth of the Mississippi there is a very excellent example 

 of the successful deepening of river mouths in tideless seas. The 

 necessity for this project was felt very early, and in 1854 a plan for 

 an open river mouth was proposed by a board of three Army engi- 

 neers, of whom Gens. Barnard and Beauregard were members. 

 This plan contemplated using parallel jetties of riprap rock on mat- 

 tress foundations, so spaced as to control and use for deepening the 

 confined river currents. The mouth of the Rhone and its unfavor- 

 able experience with similar works were in part responsible for the 

 delay in taking up this plan ; but in 1875 Capt. J. B. Eads was given 

 a contract to furnish a 26-foot channel with a 30- foot central depth 

 through the South Pass, at a cost of $8,000,000. This sum was to 

 cover maintenance for 20 years, or until 1901. It is now proposed to 

 open a new channel through the Southwest Pass, 35 feet deep and 

 1,000 feet wide, at an estimated cost of $6,000,000. This is the present 

 project, adopted in 1902. Already the jetties of this new project 

 have been completed by contract, at a cost of $2,627,000, being begim 



