whole area of country likely to be most affected by the proposed change. Information thus obtained might be relied on to guide the judgment, but it is absolutely wanting in the present case. There remains, then, only the more obvious plan of endeavoring to protect the bank as it stands, and allowing the river to keep its present channel. There are two methods of accomplishing this result, viz, by jetties or continuous revetment. Jetties will certainly deflect the main current of a stream from a caving shore, but they form hurtful eddies between them, which require the intermediate bank to be revetted. Their cost at Vicksburg would be enormous, as the water at its lowest stage has a maximum depth of 67 feet, and they would require to be raised at the inner end to high-water mark, or 45 feet above low water, to prevent the river from washing around them; moreover, as before stated, the intermediate shore would have to be revetted, so that, in my opinion, jetties would be far more costly than a continuous revetment, and also more uncertain. The plan of continuous revetinent I therefore regard as the most feasible. To carry it out in a thorough and substantial manner it would be necessary to cover the slope of the bank from low-water mark to the deepest portion of the channel with a layer of broken stone, at least 3 feet thick. The stone could be dropped overboard from barges in the same manner as in forming a riprap. From low-water mark the bank should be graded back to the levee slope of one vertical to six horizontal, and the surplus earth used in the formation of a levee with equal slopes inside and out, viz, one-sixth. The crown of this levee should be 10 feet wide and 48 feet above the low water of December 5, 1870, which, as already stated, is 43.6 feet below the high water of 1858. This would put the top of the proposed levee 3 feet above the highest water mark on record. The outer slope of this levee should be carefully paved, one foot thick, with stone as far down as low-water mark. Such a structure, it is thought, would guarantee perfect immunity to the bank, as the interstices between the stones would soon be filled up with sedimentary deposits, thus forming a compact mass which would protect the soft soil underneath froin abrasion. The inner slope of the levee is made very flat to avoid the chances of an overflow of the peninsula, which, without this precaution, would take the revetment in rear and wash it out. The total length of shore to be thus protected is 21,000 feet, nearly four miles, and extends from the bar at the point into the eddy below the canal. It would be better and easier to do the subaqueous work at low or at least a medium stage of water. The grading of the bank, &c., could of course only be done when the bank was uncovered. Stone of sufficient good quality for this work can be obtained at Haines' and other bluffs on Yazoo River, and can be towed or rafted down in barges to the place of deposit. These quarries are about twenty-five miles from the work. To insure success it would be necessary to have a large number of barges and to accumulate a considerable quantity of stone before beginning the riprap. When once commenced the work should be prosecuted with all possible dispatch to prevent the river washing the bank away before the full covering could be placed on it. In fact, if anything is to be done here it should be done very soon, as if the present rate of abrasion should continue for a year or two longer it would be too late. It would also be highly important to have the whole sum necessary appropriated at once, to avoid any delays in carrying the work through when once begun. The accompanying profile* will give an idea of the plan proposed. It is thought to be a fair average section. The stone-work will amount to 850,444 cubic yards, which can be put in place for $2 a yard. The earth-work will amount to 2,177,700 cubic yards, which I have estimated at 20 cents a yard. In a work of this magnitude, subject to so many delays, accidents, and unforeseen contingencies of all kinds, it would not be safe to put the contingent expenses at less than 25 per cent. The estimate will then stand as follows: 880,444 cubic yards stone-work, at $2 per yard.. 2,177,700 cubic yards earth-work, at 20 cents per yard Engineering, contingencies, &c., 25 per cent... Total..... $1,760, 888 00 435,540 00 549, 107 00 2,745,535 00 Respectfully submitted. CHAS. R. SUTER, Captain United States Engineers, in charge Steamer Vicksburg. Lieutenant Colonel W. F. RAYNOLDS, Corps of Engineers U. S. A., Superintendent Western River Improvements. *Profile accompanies manuscript copy of report. OFFICE OF WESTERN RIVER IMPROVEMENTS, GENERAL: Your favor of the 22d of January, 1870, referring to me the reports of General R. S. Granger and General Eben Swift touching the wearing away of the banks of the Mississippi River above and near Vicksburg, was duly received, and in accordance with the requirements of your letter I proceeded to Vicksburg as soon as my duties here would permit, to make an investigation into the existing condition of the river banks in that vicinity. I reached Vicksburg on Monday evening, the 14th of March. Early on the following morning I called upon General Swift, the mayor, and was placed by him in communication with some of the principal men of the city, who expressed great satisfaction at my being there under your instructions to examine into a matter.which so greatly interested them, they all regarding this as an evidence of the determination of the Government to afford their city protection against the danger which the action of the river seems to threaten by cutting through the narrow point of land on the opposite shore, in the parish of Madison, Louisiana, and in that event leaving their city wharf out of reach from the main channel of the Mississippi. The water has been so high in that part of the river since the early part of January as to preclude the possibility of making such a minute and thorough inspection of the banks as the necessities of the case require; and it is very much to be regretted that the demand for an examination had not been received prior to November last, when we had a steamer in commission, with a surveying party on board, that could have taken advantage of the low water of November and December to have made a careful survey there, with the best effect and at minimum expense, as the steamer was necessarily in that vicinity on duty connected with snag-boat operations. On Thursday, the 17th of March, a small steamer was kindly provided by the Messrs. Floweree, to facilitate our examination of the river. Embarking in this, accompanied by the mayor and some of the first citizens of Vicksburg, we ran up close to the right bank on the northwesterly side of the narrow point of laud opposite the city. We found many proofs of the rapid washing away of the shore; among them is the fact that our steainer was in deep water close to the land and within the area which had been but a few years ago under cultivation and inclosed by the levee, a part of which is yet standing upon the bank. We ran by the head of the military canal, at which point there seems to be no tendency of the river to encroach, but it is some two miles below the canal where the current seems to be impinging with the most destructive effect. In conversing with persons who have resided in that vicinity for the last forty years, I find that the same danger which seems to threaten Vicksburg now has aroused the fears of the inhabitants on former occasions, and, as some assert, prevented the flow of capital for permanent investment in improving their town to an extent which its commanding position and the beauty of its site would seem to justify. The cause of this renewed destructive action of the current in this vicinity is doubtless traceable to the occurrence within the last few years of the Terrapin Neck cut-off and Davis's cut-off. I found, on conferring with the people, that many different views are entertained as to what should be done to secure the city of Vicksburg its present landingplace or wharf on the main channel of the river; among others the idea that the river should be changed in its course above the town from the vicinity of Paw-Paw Island, and forced, by cutting a new channel for it, to flow down by the junction of the Yazoo River with the old bed or false river, and thence through Long Lake to debouch into the head of the bend above and within two miles of town. I believe a more effective remedy would be to revet with stone the bank where the cut-off is threatened, and thus to aid the river to keep its present channel, which it has chosen for itself, rather than to attempt the expensive and uncertain one of changing the channel, as some have suggested. I had hoped to have received some maps of the point of land where the cut-off is threatened, showing the outline of the point at successive periods, so as to give an accurate idea of the rapidity with which the wearing away has progressed; but I am disappointed in that they aave not been sent to me. Before any definite plan and estimate can be made for permanently improving the river at and near Vicksburg there should be a thorough and minute survey of the vicinity from near Terrapin Neck above to Warrenton below Vicksburg. This survey should include borings into the land opposite Vicksburg, to ascertain the nature of the strata, with a view to protecting the point against further encroachment. The survey might properly be extended, also, over the region in the interior, to ascertain what route might be advantageously adopted for a new channel for the river. From all that I could learn, the stage of water and the climate would be quite unfavorable to such a survey until about the 1st of November. I would therefore respectfully recommend that one of the boats, with the requisite force, be sent there for this purpose in November next. The communications of General Granger and General Swift are herewith respectfully returned, as requested. I remain, very respectfully, your most obedient servant, J. N. MACOMB, Colonel of Engineers, Brevet Colonel United States Army. Brigadier General and Chief of Engineers, Brevet Major General A. A. HUMPHREYS, Office of the Chief of Engineers, Washington, D. C. In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 16th instant, the reports of Samuel B. Ruggles, delegate from the United States to the International Statistical Congress at the Hague, in the year 1869. MARCH 31, 1871.-Referred to the Committee on Finance and ordered to be printed. To the Senate of the United States : In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 16th instant, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the papers which accompanied it. WASHINGTON, March 28, 1871. U. S. GRANT. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, The Secretary of State, to whom was referred the resolution of the Senate of the 16th instant, requesting the President, "if compatible with the public interests, to transmit to the Senate copies of the reports made to the Department of State by Samuel B. Ruggles, delegate from the United States to the International Statistical Congress at the Hague, in the year 1869, with the documents accompanying said reports," has the honor to lay before the President the reports mentioned in the subjoined list. The PRESIDENT. HAMILTON FISH. List of accompaniments. Mr. Ruggles to Mr. Fish, April 28, 1870, reporting the proceedings of the International Statistical Congress held at the Hague in September, 1869, with six inclosures : 1. Communication from Robert B. Roosevelt, esq., one of the commissioners on fisheries, of the State of New York. 2. Report (in French) by Richard Valpy, esq., on the statistics of the United Kingdom, and some of its colonies. 3. Official copy of the resolutions adopted by the International Statistical Congress at the Hague. 4. Circular letter from the Department of State directing the collec. tion, in foreign countries, of cereal statistics. 5. Comparative report on the cereals of the United States and of Europe, made to the congress at the Hague by Mr. Ruggles. Part I, and prefatory to Part II. 6. Copy of letter from his excellency C. Fock, minister of the interior of the Netherlands, expressing thanks for the active participation of the United States in the congress. Mr. Ruggles to Mr. Fish. NEW YORK, April 28, 1870. (Received June 2, 1870.) SIR: In the communication of the 14th day of September last to the Department of State, from the undersigned, delegate of the United States to the International Statistical Congress at the Hague, then recently adjourned, it was stated that the proceedings of the congress, which had been unusually interesting and important, would form the subject of a separate report to the Department. After some unavoidable delays, the following particulars of the action of the congress are now communicated: The International Statistical Congress held at the Hague in September, 1869, was the seventh of the series of international assemblages of that denomination; the first of which was held at Brussels in 1853; the second at Paris in 1855; the third at Vienna in 1857; the fourth at London in 1860; the fifth at Berlin in 1863; the sixth at Florence in 1867, and the seventh at the Hague in 1869. For the better understanding of the character and action of this seventh congress, it will be necessary to consider it in connection with the six preceding congresses in the series, and also, to some extent, in comparison with certain international assemblages, in which several of the leading nations of Europe were represented, in the early portion of the present century. It is believed that the facts now presented for the purpose may be of service to the Government of the United States in considering the benefits of their participating in the future international congresses of the series. With this view it may be useful, in the first place, to define what is really signified by the term "international," as applied to a congress. The fact is historically significant that up to the year 1821 the word "international" was not contained in any edition of the great dictionary of the English language, by the celebrated lexicographer, Doctor Johnson, nor in any dictionary of the French language by the French Academy, at that time published; plainly showing that neither England nor France, up to that period, had any definite idea of the thing that the word now denotes. A few philanthropists, thinly scattered over the world, may have dimly foreseen or foreshadowed that common "internationality" which the civilized nations are now seeking, but it was never distinctly and practically presented for the consideration and action of any civilized government until the year 1821. In a sense merely etymological, any compact, and, indeed, any act of intercourse between any two or more independent nations, is "international." In fact, the word was first used to describe merely "the act or manner of intercourse between nations," and is so defined in Ogilvie's Imperial Dictionary, published as late as 1850. In the preface to the celebrated work on international law by the |