Appropriated, act of August 5, 1886 (less $5, 942. 60, expenses office Chief of Engineers)..... Received from sales $115, 871.50 1,994,057.40 29.00 Total. Expended from July 1, 1886, to June 30, 1887. Balance on hand July 1, 1887.... 2, 109, 957.90 707, 021.07 1,402, 936.83 Estimate of funds for the Mississippi River Commission for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1889. FOR SURVEYS AND EXPENSES. For continuation of surveys of the Mississippi River between the head of the Passes, near its mouth, and its headwaters, now in progress; to make additional surveys and examinations and investigations, topographical, hydrographical, and hydrometrical as are necessary for maturing a plan for the permanent improvement of the entire river; and for salaries and traveling expenses cf the Mississippi River Commission, and of assistant engineers under them, and for office expenses and contingencies $200,000 FOR IMPROVING MISSISSIPPI RIVER. For continuing the improvement of the Mississippi River, from Cairo, Ill., Columbus, Ky Hickman, Ky Greenville, Miss Vicksburg, Miss.. New Orleans, La.. For the protection of Lake Bolivar levee.. $5,000,000 61,750 251, 750 148,500 282,500 608, 600 150,000 6,503, 100 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. There are some features of that clause of the act of August, 5, 1886, containing the appropriation for the Mississippi River below Cairo, and some facts relative to the expenditure of that appropriation, to which attention is invited and which will require a somewhat extended explanation. The clause referred to is in these words: Improving Mississippi River from Head of the Passes to the mouth of the Ohio River: Continuing improvement,$2,000,000; which sum shall be expended under the direction of the Secretary of War, in accordance with the plans, specifications, and recommendations of the Mississippi River Commission: Provided, That no portion of this appropriation shall be expended to repair or build levees for the purpose of reclaiming lands or preventing injury to lands or private property by overflows; Provided, however, That the Commission is authorized to repair and build levees, if, in their judgment, it should be done, as part of their plan to afford ease and safety to the navigation and commerce of the river and to deepen the channel; And provided further, That no works of bank protection or revetment shall be executed in said reaches or elsewhere until after it shall be found that the completion of the permeable contract ing works and uniform width of the high-water channel will not secure the desired stability of the river banks: Provided, however, That nothing herein contained shall prevent the construction of revetment works where the banks are caving at Greenville Reach, Delta Point, in front of the cities of Vicksburg, Memphis, Hickman, and Columbus; And provided further, That contraction works shall be built at the same time in the wide portions of the river immediately above the said revetment works. Of the amount herein appropriated for the Lower Mississippi $75,000 are to be expended in continuing the work in progress at New Orleans, $187,500 for the rectification of the Red and Atchafalaya rivers by preventing further enlargement of the latter stream and restricting its outlet capacity, and for keeping open a navigable channel through the mouth of Red or Old River into the Mississippi; $37,500 in improving navigation in the Greenville Reach by preventing the bank at Greenville from further caving; $75,000 in deepening the channel at Vicksburg by dredging through the bar existing there; but this last-named sum shall not be expended unless, after another examination or survey, the Commission shall deem it advisable; and if they shall not, then $37,500 shall be expended in the improvement of navigation at Vicksburg by constructing suitable dikes and other appropriate works; and $56,250 in completing the work on the river at Memphis; also $18,750 for work on the river at Hickman, and $18,750 for work on the river at Columbus, Ky. The Commission was at much loss to know how to execute this law. Its literal execution was impossible, as will appear clearly from the fol lowing facts: As originally recommended, and so far carried on, the plan of improvement of the Mississippi River embraced three distinct kinds of work, viz: (1) Contraction works for the purpose of closing chutes and narrowing the channel where necessary, for concentration of the low-water discharge. (2) Revetment, or bank-protection works, for the purpose of preventing caving of the banks at points where such caving, if unchecked, would make it impossible to obtain the desired contraction of the lowwater channel, or result in injurious changes of current direction below. (3) Levees, designed to limit the high-water width of the river, and. by concentration of the flood discharge within the channel, secure its deepening and enlargement by scour. This plan was fully set forth and explained in the early reports of the Commission, and received the approval of Congress. It was fol lowed consistently in the expenditure of all appropriations preceding the last. In this the proviso appeared which is quoted above, imposing a conditional limitation upon the use of works for revetment or bank protection. This proviso forbids the use of bank protection anywhere "until after it shall be found that the completion of the permeable contracting works and uniform width of the high-water channel will not secure the desired stability of the river banks." Literally construed, this was a direction by Congress to stop one branch of the work embraced in the general plan heretofore followed, and go on with the other two to completion first. The "uniform width. of the high-water channel," referred to in the proviso, is a thing attainable only by the completion of a general levee system-a work requiring many years and large sums of money for its execution. The object of the permeable contracting works is to narrow the channel. There is a theory afloat in the world that a stream whose channel is regulated in width will not erode its banks. And the plain meaning of this proviso in requiring that no bank protection should be used until after it should be found that the regulation of low-water width by contraction works and high-water width by levees "will not secure the desired stability of the river banks," is that this theory shall be applied to the Mississippi River. But this would require, not only the completion of a general levee system, but the completion of a general contraction system through. out the river or a large part of it. The channel is already narrow, in many places; but the banks cave, nevertheless. That this caving can be stopped by narrowing the channel in a few more places is impossible to suppose. The theory referred to rests upon an assumption of general regulation of width, and consequent general uniformity of velocity and sediment charge. It would have been sufficient to disincline the Commission to try so stupendous and costly an experiment, without first laying the subject fully before Congress, that it is, in the opinion of the Commission, utterly visionary and hopeless. But the experiment is one which is impossible even to try. Five years' experience in Lake Providence Reach warrants the statement that it is impossible to narrow the low-water channel in that reach through permeable contracting works alone, by any expenditure of money or continuance of work. The works may be constructed and deposits secured by the thousand acres, but unless held to its place at certain points of impingement, the current will run away from these and leave them utterly useless and ineffectual. A subsequent proviso of the clause quoted permits the use of revetment at certain places named, viz, Greenville, Delta Point, Vicksburg, Memphis, Hickman, and Columbus; but with the further provision that "contraction works shall be built at the same time in the wide portions of the river immediately above the said revetment works." The work of bank protection proposed at these places was not for the deepening of the channel, but for the preservation of harbors. There is no wide place immediately above either of them which requires contraction for the improvement of the channel. Such works would cost many times the amounts estimated for the revetments proposed in the harbors. The entire sum appropriated by the act for the river below Cairo was $2,000,000. Of this, $468,750 was required to be expended in specified works at New Orleans, Red River, Greenville, Vicksburg, Memphis, Hickman, and Columbus, leaving $1,531,250 to be allotted by the Secretary of War upon the recommendation of the Commission. That sum was insufficient for the construction, or even commencement, by advantageous methods, of works of contraction at the wide places above the barbors named. So that, upon a literal interpretation, that part of the act also was impossible of execution. In this dilemma, the Commission sought first to give effect to the beneficial purpose of the law by a somewhat liberal interpretation of its language. It was considered not beyond a fair construction of its terms, in view of its manifest object, to take it to mean, not that all works of bank protection should be excluded from the channel improvement until its total failure had demonstrated their necessity, but that revetment might be employed, not as an original means of improvement, but as an adjunct to the contraction works, where its absolute necessity was as plainly to be seen beforehand as it could be after the destruction of the works. At its meeting on September 20, 1886, the Commission recommended to the Secretary of War an allotment of $377,250 for continnance of work in the Plum Point Reach, and $300,000 for continuance of work at the Lake Providence Reach. At the same time the following resolution was adopted by the Commission and forwarded to the Secre tary of War with the recommendations: Resolved, That the Commission, in making the allotments of to-day, have assumed that in the Plum Point and Lake Providence reaches only those revetments should be built which, in the opinion of the Commission, are indispensable to preserve the improvement in the channel already gained, and to repair and preserve the work already done, and have assumed that this is the intention of the law; but if the intention of the law is thought to prevent in these reaches the construction of any revetment whatever, then the Commission would recommend that the allotments made for the reaches named be not at present expended, save in so far as to secure existing works from further damage. The allotment for the Lake Providence Reach was approved by the Secretary of War November 11, 1886, and that for Plum Point November 16, 1886. At its meeting on November 27, 1886, the Commission adopted projects for the expenditure of these allotments in the continuation of work in these reaches. The project for Plum Point embraced, among other work, the extension of an unfinished revetment in Fletcher's Bend, and that for Lake Providence the repair and extension of an unfinished revetment at Pilcher's. Both these works are shown and described in former reports of the Commission, and they were both regarded as essential to the maintenance of the contraction works and permanence of the improved channels in those reaches. These projects were transmitted to the Secretary of War with the following letter: OFFICE OF MISSISSIPPI RIVER COMMISSION, Saint Louis, Mo., November 27, 1886. SIR: The river and harbor act of August 5, 1886, imposed on the Mississippi River Commission the condition "That no works of bank protection or revetment shall be executed in said reaches or elsewhere until after it shall be found that the completion of the permeable contracting works and uniform width of the high-water channel will not secure the desired stability of the river banks." This limitation is based, it is believed, on the theory that a river, if once regulated, will not scour its natural banks. The Commission is somewhat familiar with the opinions and writings of hydraulic engineers, and, so far as it is advised, this theory is totally unrecognized by any authoritative writer on hydraulics. It is universally recognized by such writers that, in general, when a large obstruction is placed on one bank of a river a corresponding wearing away of the opposite bank occurs in consequence. There is no evidence that a regulated river will not cave its banks, and in most cases it is impossible to build permeable contracting works or secure any narrowing of the channel by them without holding the banks in their immediate neighborhood while the work is going on. The unprotected banks would recede while the contracting works were being built. These general views are fully confirmed by the experience of the Commission on the Mississippi River. The contraction works at Gold Dust, Plum Point, Duncansby, and Baleshed have been followed by caving on the opposite bank, whose immediate result is, by again enlarging the cross-section of the river, to destroy any beneficial results the contraction works might otherwise produce. That such works may secure any valuable permanent contraction, the opposite bank must in general be held by protection works. In the opinion of the Commission the idea that the Mississippi River can be permanently improved by contraction works alone is purely visionary and theoretical, contradicted by experience and not supported by any good authority. To adopt such a system is, in the opinion of the Commission, to waste public money. Holding these views, the Commission, as engineers, can not recommend to Congress so futile an undertaking. In the work which has been done in the Plum Point and Lake Providence reaches the plan which has been so frequently and explicitly recommended by the Commis sion in previous reports, and which embraces the combination of permeable contracting works and bank protection as means of narrowing and deepening the channel, has been applied. The work has been conducted under difficulties which can justly be called extraordinary. Since its commencement a succession of floods have occur red, without precedent, by which the work has been greatly interfered with and large expense and losses incurred. On two occasions the annual appropriation has failed entirely, and in no case except one has it reached the amount recommended. During long intervals of time the works have remained in an unfinished condition, exposed to injuries which under favorable conditions might have been prevented. Nevertheless, the deepened channel through the improved portions of these reaches has been maintained continuously. The present season has been one of extraordinary low water-the lowest since 1879. In many parts of the river the depth has fallen to 6 feet and under, but in the improved parts of these reaches there has been at all times a navigable channel of ample depth. Before these works were begun these reaches were the worst places on the river. It was for that reason that their inprovement was undertaken first in order. They are now good. These successful and gratifying results have been obtained by the combination of permeable contracting works and bank protection, each supplementing and aiding the other, and, in the opinion of the Commission, could not have been obtained by permeable contracting works alone. In the act of August 5, 1886, certain restrictions already referred to, not entirely free from ambiguity, are laid upon the use of bank protection or revetment as means of channel improvement. In the recommendations made for the expenditure of this appropriation, the Commission have regarded these restrictions, and have recommended no work of bank protection or revetment that does not seem to them to be absolutely necessary to save from destruction costly work already done or valuable results already obtained, leaving to yourself, at the same time, the final question of the full meaning and intent of the law. The Commission would call attention to the fact that, Congress having failed at its last session to make any provision for payment of its expenses, and the Attorney-General having decided that such expenses could not be paid from the appropriation, it has been impossible to make such inspections of the work as are much to be desired. The Commission would also call attention to the fact that the works at Plum Point and Lake Providence have seriously deteriorated during the absence of appropriations for carrying them on, and hence that the appropriations asked for in the annual report should be granted, as the works in those reaches are still incomplete and funds are not available for their completion. Q. A. GILLMORE, C. B. COMSTOCK, Lieut. Col. Engineers, Bvt. Brig. Gen., U. S. A. CHAS. R. SUTER, Major of Engineers, U. S. A. Coast and Geodetic Survey. B. M. HARROD. R. S. TAYLOR, S. W. FERGUSON. The SECRETARY OF WAR. (Through the Chief of Engineers.) This letter was laid before Congress by the Secretary of War January 25, 1887, but no action was taken upon it of which the Commission is advised. The projects recommended were not approved by the Secretary. At its meeting held July 2, 1887, the Commission adopted the following resolutions: (1) Resolved, That in view of the non-approval by the Secretary of War of certain of the projects for the improvement of the Mississippi River, under act of August 5, 1886, recommended by the Commission at its meeting in November, 1886, the Commission feels compelled to regard those recommendations so remaining non-approved as disapproved, although no express action to that effect has been communicated to the Corumission; and that it is the judgment of the Commission that all recommendations so remaining unapproved should be withdrawn, and new recommendations made for the allotment and expenditure of money covered by said recommendations in other parts of the work clearly authorized by said act, and within the general plan of improvement adopted by the Commission and approved by Congress. (2) That the judgment of the Commission is that, until further action on the subject by Congress, no work should be done in the channel, except such repairs of existing works as will protect the same from injury; and that so much of the appropriation made by said act not required by its terms to be expended for specific improvements therein named as shall not be needed for such repairs and for the care of plant should be allotted to the construction or repair of levees in those localities where they will contribute most effectually to the improvement of navigation by uniform width of high-water channel. (3) That the district officers now present be directed to prepare immediately projects for their respective districts, comprising only such work as will be in their judg ment necessary and sufficient to protect the works already constructed from injury and provide for the care of plant until the close of the present fiscal year. The projects prepared by the district officers in obedience to the last of these resolutions showed a balance of $531,140, after providing funds sufficient to protect the works already constructed and for the care of plant to the close of the fiscal year. The Commission then recom |