LEVEE (Fr. levee. a raising, embankment, from lcrcr, to raise. from Lat. let-are, to raise). The name applied to an embankment constructed along the margin of a river to restrain its waters within the natural channel during floods, and particularly the name given to the flood embankments of the Mississippi River. The so called (likes of Holland and of various European rivers and the flood embankments of the rivers Danube, Vistula, and Po are examples of levees according to the American usage of that term. The levees of the Mississippi aggregate over 1200 miles in length, and are strung along a stretch of about 1000 miles of river from Cairo to the Mexican Gulf. The construction and main tenance of these levees are in charge of commis sions Maintained by the various States bordering on the river, and of a similar organization main tained by the United States Government and known as the Mississippi River Commission. The Mississippi River Commission did its first work of levee building in 1882, but the various State commissions hail begun construction long before that time. The Government levees are
built to standard forms and dimensions varying with the height of the embankment required; roughly described they are embankments of earth having a broad bottom and narrower top and sloping sides. They are constructed by deposit ing earth in two-foot layers on a foundation cleared of all roots and stumps, and thoroughly plowed, and then sodding the top and sides with Bermuda grass at two-foot intervals. For a recent description of the Mississippi River levees, consult: Starling, "The Levees of the Mississippi Rive•," Engineering Neu.s, vol. xxv.; and Copee, 'Standard Levee Sections," Trans actions of the American Society of Civil Eng!. arrrs,vol. xxxix. (See DRAINACE; EMBANKMENT.) The article Mississippi RIVER contains a full ac count of the history and construction of the various improvements on that river, including the system of levees.