OTHER The characteristics of the banks are so different that the various localities offer special problems in themselves, and must be handled without reference to conditions that obtain elsewhere. The bluffs are threatened in one place, while in another the opposite low bank is attacked, and the river devotes its energies toward cutting a new channel. Revetments are sometimes on the bluff side, then again on the opposite; basins are occasionally eat in the soft bottom ground where the old river bed used to be, and spur-dikes are in other places the only remedy.
The mouth of the Red River brought several vexed questions before the commission, and the practical result of their conclusions will not he known until the works now• in progress are com pleted. It is feared that the bed of the Atcha falaya. the present main outlet of the Red River, will enlarge sufficiently to convert the entire country between it and the Mississippi into an arm of the sea. The only safeguard seems to be by a series of dikes and submerged dams to turn the low-water flow• of the Red River all into the Mississippi.
Another- serious prohlem was presented by the liars at the mouths of the delta, whieh have been a serious obstacle to vessels entering the river. This was solved by the celebrated engi neer James H. Earls. He selected the South Pass, and by the construction of jetties which narrowed the channel at its mouth. and thus in creased the velocity of the current, he made the river cut its own bar away. and obtained a depth through the liar and throughout the pass of 34 feet. with width adequate for all purposes of navigation. This improvement has resulted in establishing New Orleans as the leading seaport of the South. See the section Jetties.
It is well understood that the whole work of regulating the river is likely to prove a slower process than was at first supposed, and that to be efficient it can only be gradual and progressive.
It is a work of great magnitude; it is sup po,ed that not less than $75,000,000 will be needed to put it even in approximately good shape. The work has, however, suffered greatly from inadequate and intermittent appropriations, which have interforAd with a systematic and economival administration of its affairs.
For the history of the discovery and first set tlements of the Mississippi, see DE SOTO, DER NAN Do ; I I ENNEM N, LOUls ; 1BERVILLE, PIERRE; JULIET, Louis; LA SALLE, RENg ; MARQUETTE, ,JACQUES ; SCHOOLCRAFT, HENRY R.; NEIN' OR LEANS; SAINT Louts; SAINT PAUL, etc. For shipping statistics of the Mississippi see the article UNITED STATES, section on Shipping on the Mississippi System. See, also, articles on the principal tributaries.
1:intuaittAeit V. IImuphreys and Abbot, Report on Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi Ricer (Philadelphia, 18f11 ) ; Ends, Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi Ricer (New Orleans, 1876) ; Ellet, Industries of the Delta of the Mississippi (Philadelphia, n.d.) ; Glazier, Down the areal Rirer (ib., 1888) ; Corthell, History of the Jetties at the Mouth of the Mississippi River (New York, 1880) ; Johnson, "Protection of the Lower Mississippi Valley from Overflow" and "Great Floods on the Lower sippi." in Journal of the Association of Engineer ing 2:ocieties, vols. ii. and iii, (Philadelphia, 1S35) ; Ookerson and Stewart. Missia.s.ippi Pircr from saint Louis to the Neu (Saint Louis, 1892) ; Levas,eur. La question des‘ sources rltt Missis sippi (Paris. 1594) : Brower. 7'hc Missouri Hirer and its L'Imast SWIM' (Saint Paul, 1S97) : Ock ersoll, The Mississippi Rirer: Some of Its Phys ical t'har•aeteristlea ( Paris, 1900) ; and the An nual Reports of the Mississippi Hirer Commis sion (Saint Louis, 1879 at seq.).