706 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE, 



done at a cost of about $100,000,000. The River Commission propose to close 

 the outlets, and if they do they will re-establish the levee system recommended in 

 1875. They claim that the velocity of the stream must be maintained or shoals will 

 be formed from the deposition of sediment at all points where the diminution is 

 felt, and that the adoption of the ' ' outlet system " will inevitably result in the 

 formation of shoals below every outlet, while the construction of levees will con- 

 fine the stream and thus keep up the velocity necessary to retain the earth and 

 sand in suspension until the Gulf is reached. It is further claimed by the advo- 

 cates of the levee plan that the best engineers of the country have repeatedly re- 

 jected the outlet plan. 



The friends of the outlet system propose to open a channel via Lake Borgne 

 into the Gulf, through which the surplus water of freshets will find its way instead 

 of overflowing and devastating the adjacent country. Captain Cowdon, of New 

 Orleans, in speaking before the Committee explained this plan as follows: "We 

 leave the river ten miles below New Orleans with a fall of about fourteen feet in 

 going to the lake, a distance of five miles. This lake is about forty five miles 

 long, and has an area of some 300 square miles, and has a central depth of ten or 

 twelve feet, and is a part of the Gulf of Mexico. To make this outlet we pro- 

 pose first to build two levees about a mile apart, one above and one below the out- 

 let, running back from the bank of the river to the bank of the lake, to prevent 

 the overflow of the plantations, above and below, in the rear. Then we have to 

 clear off the timber and do some excavating. This can be done in about sixty 

 days, and if the appropriation can be made in time, we can make the outlet this 

 spring, so as to test it thoroughly and satisfy the whole country and Congress of 

 the truth of what I say." 



For this experiment only $250,000 is asked, and in support of the theory he 

 further pointed out the usefulness of the outlets of the Atchafalaya, Morganza 

 and Bonnet Carre in the floods of 1845 and 1877, when the water was higher at 

 all points above than below them. He also claimed that since the narrowing of 

 the river bed, by the construction of the jetties, the water had risen to a greater 

 height at New Orleans and other points on the lower Mississippi than before. 



There is also a practical illustration of the value of the outlet system and a 

 practical reply to one of the principal objections of the Levee Commission in the 

 fact stated that, while the outlets of the Mississippi have kept the river in its banks, 

 the river has deepened its own bed from three to four feet from Greenville to the 

 mouth of the Red River, a distance of 300 miles. 



Captain T. P. Leathers, an old steamboat man, also made a statement to the 

 committee, favoring the outlet system. Among other things he stated that the 

 levee system was commenced above Red River, at Concordia, Tensas and Madi- 

 son Parishes, by leveeing the low places and constructing small levees on the high 

 banks. The levees were continued during a period of twenty-one years until 1857, 

 and had pretty well controlled the water in that beat. In 1857, in low water, the 

 water went eighteen inches lower by the bank than in 1836, but the lowest water 

 we had was eight and one -half to nine feet. It showed a deepening of the water 



