EARLY OF RELIEF. The first attempt to guard the lower part of the valley against the river floods was made early in the eighteenth century, when the French Governor. De la Tour, ordered embankments for the protection of New Orleans. In the old slave days, when taller was cheap, each planter erected barriers on or near the river front of his own ground. Theo were called &Tem and were simply artificial mud banks, sometimes strengthened with ribs or foun dations of timber, sometimes not. So long as they were watched carefully and kept in good repair, they afforded comparative safety to the grounds behind them. except in the highest floods, and as time went (of the common interest of the Valley States dictated harmonious action all along both side, of the river. The development of the levee system brought about the enactment of such local laws as were best calculated to serve the public interest, and gradually the levees became recog nized factors of public welfare and were jealously guarded. The most reckless and negligent planter was forced to keep his own levees in re pair, and in places where private interest was not sufficiently strong to force the building of these earthworks, the town or the Slate assumed the burden. In 1828 the State of Louisiana be gan to take vigorous action for the more complete protection of its delta lands. In 1836 and 1838 several of the great side channels by which inun dations had come were closed at the expense of the counties, and the question of the closing of all the overflow channels, so as to confine the stream to one bed in all stages of water, was the subject of much excited difference of opinion. The closure party prevailed, and one by one the side outlets of the Mississippi were cut off by levees, so that by 1844 every old bayou outlet for 600 miles up the west bank had been effectu ally closed. The results were even more satis tory than had been expected, so that the levee system was entered upon with increased spirit by the States bordering the river, and the aid of the General Government was invoked to unify the Congress, in 1830, ordered thorough topographical and hydrographie surveys of the whole of the lower :Mississippi Valley under the direction of Capt. A. A. Humphreys and Lieut.
H. L. Abbot, who began work immediately; but the report was not submitted until August, 1861. It recommended confining the river to a single channel and making the levees higher at all pudnts, and estimated the cost of carrying out this recommendation at $17,000,000.
At the outbreak of the Civil War these levees were in better condition than ever before. Sub stantial levees had been constructed on the east side up to the northern line of the State of Mississippi, including one of great magnitude across the Yazoo largest of all the out lets closed. Do the west side the levees had been comphted to the mouth of the Arkansas. Louisiana alone had expended up to that time on the levee, of the main river: $5,000.000 more on its great side outlets, the Atchafalaya, Plaquemine, and La Fourche; and $1.000.000 on the shore of the Red Ttiver. The State of Arkansas had spent $1;000,000; Mis sissippi, on her water-front of 414 miles. $11, 500.000: and the Slate of Missouri. on her front of I° miles. $1,640.000. The total expenditure by individuals, parishes, and States up to that time, on about 21M0 miles of the river shore. is estimate,' by C. G. Forshey, of New urleans, at upward of $11.000.000. without vomiting the cost of maintenanee. Before the four years' strug gle began to draw to a elo,“', however, the levees had fallen into decay. There Were breaks here and there that destroyed the system, and the planters were too poor to hire the neeessary labor to rebuild. Something had to be done to meet the difficulty. and that too before dire disaster had fallen upon the people living in the