216 



INDIANA UNIVERSITY STUDIES 



annually bearing to the sea nearly 225,000 acre feet of the most 

 fertile sediment, and between levees along a raised river bed through 

 two hundred miles of country subject to inundation. The time is 

 here when there should be undertaken a systematic diversion of a 

 large part of this fertile soil over the swamp areas, building them 

 into well drained, fertile fields provided with water ways to serve 

 for drainage, irrigation, fertilization and transportation. These 

 great areas of swamp land may thus be converted into the most 

 productive rice and sugar plantations to be found anywhere in the 

 world, and tiie area made capable of maintaining many millions of 

 people as long as the Mississippi endures, bearing its burden of 

 fertile sediment. 



This bears a close relation to the flood situation in Indiana,, 

 for any solution of the flood conditions here must begin at the 

 mouth of the Mississippi Eiver and then embrace each of the trib- 

 utaries. It is almost useless to try to protect different places along 

 a stream e^en as small as White River. Suppose that we make 

 the whole of White River an ideal stream, one that will carry away 

 all of the excess waters rapidly enougli to keep the flood plain from 

 being inundated: railroad grades, public road grades, and bridges 

 to be so constructed that the water would be permitted free passage 

 and not impounded in the least: the channel made large enough to 

 carry an amount of water equal to that of the March flood. What 

 would be the result of such an improvement? The result is easily 

 comprehended : the water will be dumped into the Wabash River in 

 such a short time as to cause it to assume flood conditions at once 

 and the damage will be greater than before the improvement of 

 White River. The region of flood damage would be shifted down 

 stream to the Wabash, where the height of the flood would be 

 greatly increased. The people of the White River Valley would 

 have simply put their troubles and losses on the people below. 



It seems impracticable to try to provide a channel large enough 

 to carry the amount of water that came down White River last 

 March. Improvements on the channel would help to take care of 

 the ordinary flood. That is the phase that we wish to guard against 

 first, and then try to cope with floods of the proportions of the 

 recent one. 



A Brief Consideration of Reservoirs 



The effect of natural reservoirs upon the discharge of streams 

 is shown in a striking manner in the Niagara River. The stream 

 flow here is very constant, the maximum being onl\' 35 per cent 



