CHAPTER XLVII
THE BAFFLING MISSISSIPPI
As inevitably as water flows down the hills of Vicksburg to the river,
the visitor's thoughts flow down always to the great spectacular,
historic, mischievous, dominating stream.
Mark Twain, in that glorious book, "Life on the Mississippi," declared,
in speaking of the eternal problems of the Mississippi, that as there
are not enough citizens of Louisiana to take care of all the theories
about the river at the rate of one theory per individual, each citizen
has two theories. That is the case to-day as it was when Mark Twain was
a pilot. I have heard half a dozen prominent men, some of them
engineers, state their views as to what should be done. Each view seemed
sound, yet all were at variance.
Consider, for example, that part of the river lying between Vicksburg
and the mouth. Here, quite aside from the problem as to the hands in
which river-control work should be vested--a very great problem in
itself--three separate and distinct physical problems are presented.
From Vicksburg to Red River Landing there are swift currents which
deposit silt only at the edge of the bank, or on sand bars. From Red
River Landing to New Orleans the problem is different; here the channel
is much improved, and slow currents at the sides of the river, between
the natural river bank and the levee, deposit silt in the old "borrow
pits"--pits from which the earth was dug for the building of the
levees--filling them up, whereas, farther up the river, the borrow pits,
instead of filling up, are likely to scour, undermining the levee.
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