608 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 485. 



can have any utility. On the contrai-y, I 

 think that there is a form of outlet which 

 might possibly be employed upon the lower 

 part of the river with advantage in condi- 

 tions which may arise hereafter. Such 

 outlets would be confined to points in the 

 west bank below Red River. They would 

 consist of regulated spillways, or waste- 

 weirs, taking off the top layer of extraor- 

 dinary floods and conducting the water 

 to the sea across the Atehafalaya basin. 

 Their object would be to alleviate extreme 

 flood heights through the sugar country and 

 at the city of New Orleans. They would 

 have no effect upon floods in the central 

 and upper parts of the valley. They would 

 not be outlets, as the word is usually ap- 

 plied, but waste-weirs in the strict sense of 

 the word — long, shallow notches in the top 

 of the levee, stone paved and side walled to 

 prevent the possibility of enlargement, with 

 secure channels leading to gulf level in the 

 Atehafalaya lakes and bayous. Their con- 

 struction would be experimental both as to 

 benefits in relieving the strain of great floods 

 and as to their effect on the channel below 

 them. I speak of them now for the sake, 

 more than anything else, of forestalling any 

 suggestion of inconsistency on my part in 

 case the developments of a few years to 

 come should indicate a need of them. I do 

 not want to be tied to a word. The oiitlet 

 theory is a delusion. At the same time, a 

 safety valve in the form of an outlet might 

 have a certain utility in a certain situation. 

 This would not be as a substitute for a levee 

 system, but as an adjunct to a completed 

 and perfected levee system. 



The time has not come yet for the prac- 

 tical consideration of such a scheme. We 

 do not know enough to enable us to form a 

 reliable judgment of the probable necessity 

 and utility of it. We must hold a flood or 

 series of floods so effectually that we shall 

 be surer than we can be now of the eleva- 

 tions to be expected. It may cost us some 



dear experience— some bad breaks and dis- 

 astrous overflows, but for the present noth- 

 ing shoiild be allowed to divert our money 

 or our attention from the main work in 

 hand— the full completion of the grand 

 levee system of the main river. I have 

 spoken of the possible utility of spill-ways, 

 or waste-weir outlets, below Red River in 

 order to mark with exactness that limited 

 application of the outlet method which I 

 believe to be feasible, and possibly useful, 

 as distinguished from its general applica- 

 tion, which I believe to be utterly imprac- 

 ticable. 



On the subject of reservoirs little need 

 be said. It is a delightful scheme to think 

 of and talk about. It would beautify 

 the map with lakes throughout the upper 

 valley. It would bring the delights of 

 boating, fishing and swimming within the 

 reach of millions of us to whom they are 

 now inaccessible pleasures. It would re- 

 move all danger of a surplus in the na- 

 tional treasury for a long time to come, 

 and it might reduce the surplus in the 

 Mississippi River somewhat. 

 • When men think of reservoirs in this 

 connection they commonly locate them in 

 the headwaters of the Mississippi and the 

 Missouri. Unfortunately, it is not there 

 that the rains fall that furnish the stuff 

 for great floods, but in the valley of the 

 Ohio and its tributaries. The storms that 

 sweep from the southwest across the Ozark 

 Mountains and on over Kentucky, Illinois, 

 Indiana, Ohio, western Pennsylvania, West 

 Virginia and Tennessee are the bearers of 

 woe to the people of the alluvial valley. 

 One of the consequences of those rains has 

 been to make the regions where they fall so 

 fertile and attractive that they are filled 

 with population, farms, cities, railroads, 

 factories and all the adjuncts of high civil- 

 ization. To occupy the country with the 

 reservoirs necessary to hold back a great 

 Mississippi flood would involve an incal- 



