CRISIS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVII, Issue XLVII, 10 April 1912, Page 5

CRISIS.

THE MISSISSIPPI FLOODS. A SUPREME TEST. (Press Association. —Copyriuht.) NEW YORK, April 9. The crisis has been reached in the flood area. If the dykes hold for another day the danger will be past. The total losses already amount to £2,000.G00. and 30,000 pcopL are homeless and living in tents. Army supplies are arriving. THE DANGER PASSING. (Received 11.5 a.m.) NEW YORK. April 9. Reports from Memphis, .Mississippi, slate that the flood danger is passing, and that the river is falling. THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. The Mississippi river usually attains its highest, level about this period in the year. " The control of the waters of the river, which in flood time becomes a mighty torrent, and the necessity for the prevention of the overflow have for two centuries presented a problem that has taxed the brains of the highest engineering authorities in the United States, but- there was no joint action by the States directly interested until after the close of the Civil War, and the protective ■works which had been executed up to tliat time Were completed on the basis of defective plans and were not effective to prevent the disastrous inundation of the country. Nor have the more systematic measures which have been adopted in modern times been wholly satisfactory, for the alluvial valley ha s at different times, despite the existence of levees for a total length of about 1500 miles, been visited by disaetrous floods. The levees are not quite continuous, and apart from that, they are not always strong enough to 'withstand the water-pressure of high floods, which have at some points, a? has been ascertained by measurement, a maximum rise of as much as 59 feetabove the lowest stage of the river, and tenel, moreover, to increase in 'heightowing to the improved drainage that has followed an extension of cultivation Breaches, or crevasses as they are termed in the United States, resulting from a deficiency in the strength of consistency of the banks, or from their being overtopped or eroded by the current, produce a sudden rush of flood-waters through t-he opening, and this is much more damaging to "the land in the neighbourhood of the breach and much more fraught with danger to life than a gradual inundation would be. Steps that have been taken to contract the channel of the river would seem. also, to have certainly not diminished the risk of floods, and it is also held that in many places the levees are built much nearer the normal margin of the river than is consistent with keeping the flood heights as low as possible. Apparently the problem, upon the attempted solution of which many millions of pounds have been expended, has not yet been completely settled, and the inability of artificial embankments to withstand the mighty forces of Nature has once more been demonstrated.