Remarks in Relation to the Improvement of the Mississippi River [pp. 696-700]

IMPROVEMENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.
waters of the Mississippi, are not only useless for any agricultural
purpose, but exert an unfavorable influence upon the health of the
adjacent country. Protected from overflow by the river, they might
be subjected to the labor of the planter, and made profitable for the
investment of his capital. But the consequences that would certainly follow, without improving the course of the river, should be
considered.
If the surplus water that now flows from the Mississippi in time of
a flood into these swamps and lagoons, be confined within the main
channel of the river, or rather between the longitudinal levees, the
spring floods must necessarily rise to a greater height. This will render
necessary an increased elevation of the levees wherever they exist.
From the increased pressure of the water and exposure, these levees
will be more subject to crevasses than before; while, from the greater
height of the levees, the effects of the crevasses will be more destructive to the adjacent lands. The experience of the last few years has
sufficiently proved that as the levees become more elevated, the
crevasses are none the less frequent and more destructive. Everything that tends to increase the volume and elevation of the water in
the main channel, so long as it is left unimproved, must render them
still more so.
The bed of the Mississippi river is rising, while the level of the
valley, where it is protected by the levees, is stationary and has ceased
to keep pace with it. However slow that rise may be, it is certain
that the time must come, if the present system is continued, when the
bottom of the bed of the river will be considerable higher. Any reflecting man will, therefore, see that the levee system, notwithstanding
the vast expenditure of labor and money necessary to keep it up, and
the heavy yearly losses entailed upon the neighboring landed proprietors by inundations, will ultimately reach a point beyond which its
further continuance, if practicable at all, can only be maintained at
an enormous cost, while no care or precaution can prevent the yearly
overflows and consequent devastation.
As a system, therefore, the levees are defective for several reasons.
In the first place, they contribute nothing to the improvement of the
river —neither making its channel deeper, nor its course straighter,
and leaving its navigable condition certainly no better than they
found it. In the second place, by affording a temporary protection
to the planter, they throw him into a dream of fancied security that
prevents him from directing his attention and energy to some more
efficient method of improving the river and obtaining permanent security for himself. In the third place, by affording a mere temporary
expedient to meet impending evil, they can only postpone a danger
which is inevitable, and the coming of which will only be the more
ruinous the longer it is delayed.
Louis Hebert, State engineer of Louisiana, in his report to the
legislature of that State, dated, Baton Ronge, January 1st, 1856,
699