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INDIANA UNIVERSITY STUDIES 



cut or washed at the river end of the levee, while at the other end 

 where there were no trees, the land was washed very badly for 

 some distance below\ To the leeward of this levee about eighty 

 acres was covered with a heavy deposit of silt. In some places 

 the silt was over a foot in depth. This levee was not built with 

 the intention of protecting the valley land, but was built years 

 ago in connection with the old canal between Terre Haute and 

 Evansville. 



It is interesting to note the situation where the C. T. H. & S. 

 E. railroad crosses the valley in southern Greene County and northern 

 Daviess County. Long stretches of trestle work are frequent and at 

 the river there is a long stretch. The trestle wo.'l: permitted 

 the water to pass by, practically unimpeded. Consequently little 

 or no damage was done to the railroad or to the land either above 

 or below the grade. The advisability of trestle work was clearly 

 shown here. 



Knox and Daviess Counties. White River, l^.-tween Knox 

 and Daviess Counties, is a long series of meanders a wide and 

 dismal stretch of valley land. For as much as three-^'^' Hhs o_ the 

 distance no upland is visible from the river. The valL nd seems 

 so plentiful that little care is taken of either its im^xv^vement or 

 its protection against the meandering river. Each year acre after 

 acre of this fertile land is taken from the outside of the numerous 

 meanders, and corresponding low sandy wastes are made on the 

 inside of the meanders. If this meandering could be stopped, or 

 the river straightened and kept straight, hundreds of acres of fertile 

 land could be utilized, which now are either sandy or swampy waste 

 areas. But the valley land is, perhaps, yet too plentiful for such 

 measures to be considered. 



The flood damage between these two counties was not so great 

 as might be supposed, since the valley is so wide the waters spread 

 out in some places as much as five miles. This prevented it from 

 being very deep and from being confined in definite currents, except 

 locally. It was only locally that the soil was denuded by the cur- 

 rent passing over it. The greatest damage was in the bank-cutting 

 on the outside of the meanders. As bank-cutting is no worse 

 in times of flood than when the banks are just full, or partially 

 full, the flood did no more damage than any other ordinary high 

 water, so far as soil wash was concerned. The problem of bank- 

 cutting lies in straightening the river and then keeping it straight. 

 It is a question as to whether the benefits derived would meet the 

 cost of keeping it straight. 



