n8 THE IMPROVEMENT OF RIVERS. 



tion, and the like, exist that will justify their construction, they become legitimate, 

 subjects for Government adoption. 



" The Floods of the Mississippi and the Missouri. A belief that it is within the 

 range of possibility to diminish materially the great floods of these rivers by means 

 of reservoirs upon its tributaries has long been held. In a work well known in its day 

 (The Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, by Charles Ellet, Jr., published in 1853), the author 

 advocates this view with great vigor, and had his data been as correct as his argument 

 he would have made out a good case. The subject was briefly reviewed by Humphreys 

 and Abbot in their report upon the Mississippi River (1861), and the views of foreign 

 engineers upon this method of river regulation were cited at considerable length. 

 Although the authors of this report pronounced the scheme impracticable so far as the 

 Mississippi is concerned, the idea has, nevertheless, continued to have its advocates 

 from that day to this. It has occasionally found expression in public documents or 

 acts of Congress. In the voluminous report of the Senate Committee on Irrigation, 

 which forms Senate Report No. 928, Fifty-first Congress, first session, the committee say: 



" 'It is confidently believed that, with restraining dams to hold back the water 

 of the numerous lakes found at the head waters of the various tributaries of these rivers, 

 and reservoirs constructed at other suitable points, together with the aid of the natural 

 flow of the streams, a very large extent of country, now comparatively worthless, could 

 be made exceedingly productive, while the floods in the lower Mississippi would be greatly 

 alleviated.' 



"During the past year two investigations have been ordered by Congress, having 

 as one of their objects an examination of this reservoir question. Among engineers 

 there are not a few of reputable standing in their profession who hold similar views to 

 those expressed in the Senate report quoted above. With the general public the idea 

 is almost an axiom, and it finds constant expression in the press, particularly when a 

 great occasion, like that of the recent Mississippi floods, calls attention to it. It has 

 therefore seemed important to devote some especial care to the subject, and very soon 

 after taking up the study I arranged to have Mr. James A. Seddon, United States assistant 

 engineer, compile existing data on the Mississippi floods in such form as to present the 

 subject in its entire magnitude so that it can be readily understood. 



"Few people have any adequate conception of either the origin or the magnitude 

 of great floods like those on the lower Mississippi. It is a common error to think that 

 they come largely from the melting snows in the mountains. Yet the floods of the 

 Mississippi nearly all come at seasons when the flow from the mountains is very small. 

 In the greatest known flood of the Mississippi at St. Louis, that of 1844, a large part 

 of which came from the Missouri, the latter stream was found by pilots to be in low- 

 water stage above Sioux City. On the occasion of the late heavy flood in the Mississippi, 

 when at its maximum stage, the Arkansas carried practically no water across the 

 Kansas-Colorado line, the Platte did not run above 2000 cubic feet per second at North 

 Platte, Neb., and the upper Missouri and Yellowstone were both in low-water stage. 



