Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/256

252 to so act, a flood would finally reduce itself to an insignificant rise of water.

The following table may yield additional information concerning flood conditions :

Levees were constructed by the early settlers of Louisiana about the year 1717 near New Orleans. In 1844 the right bank of the river in this state was embanked and many other isolated levees were in existence, especially along the Yazoo basin front. The average height of the Louisiana levees was four feet. Through the years up to 1883, there seems to have been a constant agitation of the question of levee building. Riparian states, districts and owners formed committees and boards, taxed the protected lands or the products of these lands and in general managed to put their constituents under a heavy burden of debt. In 1858 a tax of 10 cents per acre was demanded on all lands which were freed from inundation, and such lands as bordered the river were often subjected to a tax of 25 cents per acre. In 1865 a board was constituted with a revenue derived from a tax on cotton of 1 cent per pound. In the year 1882, a flood greater than any previously experienced overflowed the entire basin and destroyed most of the levees then existing. The Mississippi River Commission, created a few years before, now entered upon its work at an opportune time. With the landowners disheartened, their labors resulting in little gain, their money invested in levees swept away, the allotments of the commission were enough to revive the courage of the riparian proprietors. There has been a steady gain in the protection of the alluvial basin since the creation of this commission. At present the levee system comprises about 1,500 miles of structure and is 71 per cent, completed.

The height of the levees is a varying one. If the levee is built on the immediate banks of the stream (Fig. 3), which is the highest part