Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu/138

132 Although the history of the confinement of this river covers a period of nearly 200 years, no concerted plan for the regulation of the river in its extent through the alluvial basin had been attempted. The commission took up its work at a peculiarly fortunate time. The organization was about completed when, in 1882, a flood of unprecedented size overflowed the whole alluvial basin and destroyed most of the levees then existing. The slate was clean. No previous work conceived along narrow lines blocked the progress of any project which the commission might formulate. The land owners and riparian proprietors were discouraged. Their work in levees was destroyed and burdensome taxes for levee construction had profited them little. The allotments of money appropriated by the government revived their spirits and renewed efforts were instituted. Levee construction has gone on continuously from that time to the present, until to-day a little less than 75 per cent, of the banks of the river south of Cape Girardeau, Mo. is leveed. The recommendations of the commission show that the early completion of the system of levees is in their opinion a desideratum. The levees have been constantly increased in height. This was expected. The confinement of waters within narrower and narrower limits as the levees increased in length would be evidenced in the vertical expansion of the waters. There is no criterion for the height of the embankments except the highest known stage of the river. It is planned to exceed this stage by from 2 to 4 feet. The difficulties of this arrangement may be illustrated by the floods of 1897 and 1903. A provisional grade 2 feet above the 1897 flood was adopted; in 1903 the flood was in some places 2.5 feet above the 1897 stage and the waters would have over-topped the levees had they not been reenforced by sand bags. After the 1903 flood a new provisional grade was adopted which in some instances is 5 feet above the provisional grade for the years before. There always remains the possibility, and it is not a remote one, that the highest-known flood may be exceeded in stage.

That the constructions and vigilance of the men working under this commission have been effective, the showing of the Yazoo Basin proves. This basin, having an area of about 6,300 square miles, equivalent to the combined areas of Connecticut and Rhode Island, has in twenty years experienced an increase of over 100 per cent, in its population. In 1900, 195,346 people were living in this area. Railroads have been built, forests have been removed, lands cultivated, industries of many kinds developed and holdings of scarcely a nominal price have become farms of considerable value.

That protection has not always been accorded the dwellers of this and other basins is also evident when the records of flood seasons are reviewed. In the Yazoo Basin during the high water of 1903, the last high water season, one fourth of the basin was under water; one half of the city of Greenville inundated; 60,000 people, or one third of the inhabitants of the basin driven from their homes and traffic was