Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/556

 XJNITED BTATBS U. MISSISSIPPI & RUM BIVBB BOOM 00. 549 �Nelson, D. J. Suit is brought by the government àgainst the defendants to restrain and prohibit them from running or permitting any logs to be run over the falls of St. Anthony, or from setting adrift, from the boom of the defend- ant Company, any logs, which, if let loose and not guided into the channel provided by the government, would pass over said falls and seriously impair, if not destroy, the government structures erected at that point. A sluice-way through the public Works built at the falls of St. Anthony, on the Mis- sippi river, ample for the passage of logs through it to a point on the river below, is completed according to the plan adoptee by the officers of the war department in charge thereof. �This sluice-way was neeessary to secure the safety of the government works erected to preserve the falls and f aeilitate the transportation of logs. An apron of planked timber had been oonstructed over the crest of the falls to protect the rock, and prevent the wasting away of the underlying soft saind- stone, when it was ascertained that the passage of logs down through the rapids and over the apron, foUowing the current of the stream, shattered, displaced, and permanently destroyed sections of the wood-work of which the apron is built. �On March 3, 1879, congress, in the river and harbor bill, appropriated $10,000 to build a sluice-way through the works which secured the safe water carriage of logs to a point below the falls without injury to the works previously erected, There are no means provided by the government to direct loose logs floating down the river from above into the mouth of the sluice-way, and the natural current of the river would carry them through the rapids and over the apron. �The defendant boom company is a corporation created by the act of the legislature of the state of Minnesota, and bas constructed its booms above the head of Nicollet island, lying in the Mississippi river one-half mile or more above the gov- ernment sluice-way, and by its charter is authorized to col- lect and control, for the distance of 20 miles above the falls of St. Anthony, ail logs coming down the river, and to assort them, and, on request of the owners, turn them out of its ����