A Review of the Report Upon the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River: Upon the Protection of the Alluvial Region Against Overflow, and Upon ... Investigations Made Under Acts of Congress - Tapa blanda

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Excerpt from A Review of the Report Upon the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River: Upon the Protection of the Alluvial Region Against Overflow, and Upon the Deepening of the Mouths; Based Upon Surveys and Investigations Made Under Acts of Congress

This fact has made the problem Of protection against overflow the great practical question involving the prosperity of that entire region.

The river was first settled near its month, at New Orleans and Natchez. The high bluff on which Natchez is built, being one hundred and fifty feet above the river, effectually relieves that city from all danger Of inundation. But at New Orleans the very condition Of existence is artificial protection against this danger. Here then, at the very outset, began the great struggle which, throughout the alluvial region, has made the history of civilization the history of river-protection. From 1727, when, in November, Governor Perrier announced that the first levee at New Orleans, a dike feet long and eighteen feet wide at top, was completed, down to the present day, when more than a thousand miles Of levees line the banks, the constant Object of legislation and private care has been to restrain this terrible friend within his proper bed. The great prominence Of this question of protection has carried it into local politics, and made it an issue on which party success has depended. In Louisiana the Outlet party and the Levee party have fought, in caucus and mass meeting, the same battle for power which is fought elsewhere under other names. The statute-books of the River States are full of laws on the same subject, and the ever-present danger causes a never-ceasing agitation.

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