THE MISSISSIPPI DANGER.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143786, 9 May 1912, Page 7

THE MISSISSIPPI DANGER.

FLOODS CO AIK IN SPRING. The valley of die Mississippi is below high flood level for a distance of probably 600 miles from a point near Cape Girardeau. 445 miles above Cairo, to the Gulf of Mexico. The alluvial valley here lias a width varying from 20 to 80 miles and an area of 29,790 or so miles. Throughout its course the river has to be kept in check by embankments. Those works are called lovoes. .They were undertaken first by the French settlers, and have been gradually extended until nmf they arc fully 1590 miles in length. They do not afford complete protection from inundations, however, for they are not quite continuous, and they are not always strong enough to resist, the pressure of high floods, which, at A’icksburg for instance, may rise even 60ft. above the lowest stage of the river. Moreover, the improved cultivation of the valley, with the accompanying improvement in the drainage and of the quantity of water coming into 'the channel, has tended to increase the height of the floods. Breaches, or crevasses, as they are termed, resulting from the erosion of die levees or from structural weakness, produce sudden rushes of fiord waters, which aro far more dangerous and damaging than gradual imoidaiious, and as the hanks are being steadily built up tho fiords become more and more serious io the low lands away from the river. The levees aro breached almost

overy spring, and vxroptional floods occur about every ten years. There is thus a constant struggle between man and nature, for the floods undermine lie banks, break down the levees, or cause unexpected changes in the river’s course, particularly at the bends, where' the protective works are necessarily concave. Now Orleans itself is below the flood level of the Mississippi, and lias to be protected by costly works. THE MISSOURI WANTS ITS WAV. The Mississippi's groat tributary, the Missouri, is also liable lo spring floods. “The Missouri is credited with more meanness, treachery, and nmlerhandedness than any other river in the United States.” wrote a correspondent some lime ago, “and no doubt it deserves its reputation. Uni; those who malign it forget that it has not had many civilising influences, that it is n savage and goes wild out of sheer hatred of restraints. You can riprap, willow mat, and any other engineering trick that you please, and Old Muddv will beat yon out. No one can find any complaint ever having been made against it when the Indians lived along its bank : the Missouri ami they got on well together, for they understood each other. But it is said with some authority that the first white man who put up a shanty on its hanks floated away on the roof before morning and laid the foundation for all the maledictions that have been launched at the river ever since. Then, too, began the struggle between while man and river in which there has been no truce. “In the struggle between - man and river a number of fine towns have fallen and others have been so switched about as to scarcely know themselves. A community between Kansas City and the lowa line that had for years rejoiced that in its modest rural manner it had enjoyed the advantages of Missouri local option was switched over by the rascally river to Mr. Stubbs' State and landed low and dry. In exchange for this deviltry the river gave one of Kansas’ original prohibition villages and exposed a severely temperate people to all the dangers of the demon Rum. ‘ “Two towns, once rivals for the honour of being the metropolis of central Missouri, arc beneath the river. They are old Franklin, in Howard county, and Nashville, in Boone. They were shipping points of importance for the reason that 'each controlled and did a thriving business. With the decline of river traffic the towns began to dwindle, and the Missouri saved them from a lingering existence after their glory had departed by charitably swallowing them, so that to-day not even a fallen roof or a crumbling chimney marks the sprits where hundreds of souls lived and hoped for a great municipality. “The Missouri lias always been partial to Kansas City in flood time. It is the largest town on its course, and perhaps it thinks that a people who had the energy to build lip a groat municipality among such hills and rocks had enough of fight in them to make a shining mark. It never exactly liked the lackadaisical way in which Omaha and St. Joseph Combated it; there wasn’t enough of vira in the fight. Jt had often tried to get into Kansas City, Init never got much further than the west bottoms, and then its water would give out and it had to retire. But at the time of the great flood in the early part of this century—people in 'Kansas City don’t refer lo this incident in their history any more than is absolutely necessary, just the same as Wichita doesn’t talk about the groat boom or San Francisco of the earthquake—the Missouri hud its innings.”

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