538 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



build the levees. Makeshift levees of primitive style were thrown up close to the 

 river bank in order to save the land for cultivation, and also because the ground 

 was always highest upon the river margin. As the plantations became more 

 numerous, and approached each other, co-operation came into play, and levees 

 were built for a long distance across the river front of several plantations. The 

 levees thus built were of slight construction, but they afforded ample protection 

 for a number of years. But in 1844 the river rose unusually high, and all the 

 levees were destroyed, making it evident that more substantial methods of con- 

 struction must be introduced. State aid was called in for the first time. Levee 

 Boards and other similar bodies were organized; funds were raised by local taxa- 

 tion of lands; professional engineers were consulted and employed, and, the 

 negroes not being skilled with the spade, armies of Irish laborers were drawn 

 into the service. 



Much of the work was necessarily temporary, the unbridled river carrying 

 away huge slices of its banks in the most unexpected places. Therefore it was 

 necessary either to renew the levees frequently or place them far back from the 

 river, and out of its reach if possible. But this made the land in front worthless 

 for cultivation, and violent controversies were thus brought about between plant- 

 ers and the Levee Board, the former naturally objecting to being deprived of so 

 much of their best land. 

 J ,The primitive levee, as built before the days of civil engineers and Irishmen, 

 was an embankment sloping from the surface at an angle of forty-five degrees to 

 a foot or two above high-water mark. Ground was thrown up from each side, 

 making an irregular ditch at each base, two spades deep, and usually full of 

 water. Whenever the river rose against the levee, the "transpiration water" 

 which oozed through and filled the trench behind, made it difficult to get at 

 levee for work in case of emergency. The levee was directly upon the natural 

 surface,' stumps and even logs were left in it, leaving places where dangerous cav- 

 ities for the passage of the insinuating water were certain to form. Sometimes 

 the levee, built directly upon the surface, would slide away from the pressure of 

 of the river. 



The improved mode which followed was, first, to clear the space to be cov- 

 ered by the levee entirely off, removing trees, stumps, roots, logs, weeds, and 

 even grass and leaves. A so-called "mock-ditch" was then dug the whole 

 length of the proposed work, three feet wide and of the same depth. This was 

 straightway filled up again. The object of this was to close all root holes and 

 to mortise the superstructure into the natural earth, thus preventing any sliding 

 away. The loose earth thrown up for the building of the levee, and filling 

 the ditch in settling, naturally formed a uniform mass more solid than the 

 natural earth. The levee, by this construction fitting into the ground as two 

 matched boards fit together, was thus securely anchored. In building the levee 

 according to the improved method the material is only taken from the ground 

 outside, toward the river, and at least twenty feet away. The earth is car- 

 ried on wheel-barrows upon run plank. The dimensions vary according to the 



