MJSSISSIFFi LEVEES. 541 



protected and improved, these lands would be worth $2,043,858,251. As their 

 present value is but $107,628,833, the increase would be a sum nearly equal to 

 the national debt. It is therefore claimed that the returns would justify the out- 

 lay of the largest sum which the improvement would be likely to cost. 



In 1874 a national commission recommended an elaborate levee system. 

 As this was regarded as but a temporary expedient, the commission appointed 

 under the law of 1879 considered more comprehensive plans. Chief of these are 

 two which are designed to make a subordinate element of the levees, and possibly 

 to make it possible to dispense with them altogether. One of these is called the 

 "outlet system," and is designed to carry off the superfluous waters by making 

 large and adequate outlets, possibly diverting the Red River so that it shall 

 Teach the gulf independently of the Mississippi. 



The system recommended by Capt. Eads, who has the prestige of success, 

 never having failed in anything he has undertaken, is the precise opposite, as he 

 proposes to close all outlets, confining the water so closely that it would dredge out 

 the channel, giving a uniform width, depth and velocity. He claims to be able 

 to secure a channel twenty feet deep by this means, tlius improving the naviga- 

 tion wonderfully and preventing all danger of floods. These benefits can be se- 

 cured, he says, "for a sum entirely within the ability of the Government, and 

 one really insignificant when compared with the magnitude of the benefits which 

 would flow from such improvements." 



The New York Journal of Commerce, in commenting upon the recent floods 

 in the Upper Mississippi, commends the sentiments of a correspondent, who fears 

 injury to the dwellers along the upper part of the stream by the proposed improve- 

 ments below. The Journal of Commerce says art can not interfere for the most 

 beneficent purposes with the natural channel or coarse of a stream without pro- 

 ducing results different in some respects from those intended. Mr. 'Eads' jetty 

 system of narrowing and deepening the Mississippi at points below New Orleans 

 has not been in operation long enough to effect the injurious consequences which 

 may yet be expected from it on the waters far above. But, if this plan is carried 

 out on the enormous scale demanded by the St. Louis Convention, in parts of 

 the river remote from its mouth, then the floods of the future cannot fail to be 

 more serious than those of which complaints are now pouring in from the West. 

 If the present unrestricted channel of the Mississippi is not wide enough to ac- 

 commodate the waters of the freshet, it "stands to reason" that every dike, jetty 

 and dam constructed for the purpose of narrowing the river must offer a dimin- 

 ished outlet for the superabundant water. There are others, however, who say 

 that such objections as these have about as much weight as that of the wolf who 

 said that the lamb drinking in the stream below him was defiling the water where 

 he was — Boston Herald. 



