RIVER IMPROVEMENTS. 745 
tending along both sides of the river substantially from Cairo to the Balize, and 
covering all exposed and dangerous points except one reach on the west bank 
of the River in the New Madrid and St Francois River country of Missouri and 
Arkansas. With the outbreak of the war in 1861, these improvements stopped 
and much of that which had been made fell into bad repair during that struggle, 
and beyond some repairs little has been done at it since. 
During the era in which these improvements were being made, the object 
most had in view was to protect the rich agricultural lands in the immediate 
vicinity of the river subject to inundation by annual floods. The river and its 
tributaries, the Missouri, Ohio, Illinois, Tennessee, Arkansas and the Red Rivers 
were all great channels of commerce, being navigated by steamboats which pro- 
vided transportation for both passengers and freight. The steamboat was a very 
great improvement upon any method of transportation previously employed, 
but their expensiveness and inadequacy had not yet been shown by the competi- 
tion of railways, hence the necessity of improving the navigabiUty of the river 
had not made itself apparent. Soon after the close of the war this defect be- 
came prominent, railways extending from the Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic 
seaboard having diverted the course of commercial movements from the river 
channel. 
As a remedy for this defect and to provide the cheaper transportation 
which water-courses afford Capt. James B. Eads, of St. Louis, proposed the im- 
provement of the channel of the Mississippi so that it could be navigated with 
barge lines instead of steamboats, and the opening of one of the outlets into the 
Gulf, which constitute the Mississippi delta, so that the largest sea-going craft 
might enter into the deeper waters inside the bars. Under authority and by aid 
of the National Government this improvement was begun at South Pass, consist- 
ing of a system of jetties, to confine the water into a narrower channel and thus 
cause it to do its own dredging. The conclusion of this work was so successful 
in providing a sufficiently deep channel, and also in showing the practicability 
of such improvements on the river that it was then proposed to extend it to all 
shoal places along the Mississippi and its navigable tributaries. With this view 
the Mississippi River Commission was instituted by Congress for the Mississippi 
River proper, and able engineers of the Army were detailed to take charge of 
the improvements of the tributaries. 
The first work to which the Commission and the engineers addressed them- 
selves was the surveys of the river, geographically, hpdrographically, and hydro- 
metrically, with a view of determining the extent of the improvement to be made, 
its ultimate cost and methods. These surveys having been completed, it was 
found that the Missouri River and the Mississippi below the mouth of the Mis- 
souri, was in character substantially the same stream, easy of improvement and 
requiring substantially the same methods. These two streams, as far down as 
Lake Providence at least, run through an alluvial and sandy soil. They have 
great fall and hence a rapid current, which rapidly cuts away the banks wherever 
VII— 47 
