TILE Mtsstssleel RIVER COAIAIISSION. A com mission under this name was created by act of Congress of June 28, 1879, and consists of seven persons, three of whom are army officers selected from the Corps of Engineers, one from the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and two civil engineers and a lawyer from civil life. The commission was directed by the act to complete surveys of the entire river, from headwaters to mouth, and to take into consideration such plans and estimates as will correct, permanently locate, and deepen the channel and protect the river banks. The prevalent idea, therefore, that the work of the commission is confined to the lower river is erroneous. For the expenses of the surveys, ex aminations. and investigations conducted by the commission for the first tell years of its work, considerably over a million dollars were appro priated and expended. This is entirely inde pendent of the appropriations made for the actual works of improvement, which were begun in 1881, and which have cost thus far, in round numbers. over $14,000,000. In the various ap propriation bills for this purpose the commission has been restricted earefully ill the scope of the work to the exact purposes defined in the creating act. In making the preliminary surveys ordered by Congress, the commission found it had to deal with a work of most extraordinary difficul ties. The main portion of its labor was called on for the lower river: that is. from Cairo to the full. The distance in a straight line is less than WO miles, but by the NV indin3s and twistings of the river it is some 500 miles longer. Forever bringing down its own obstructions and drop ping them in its own path, the river is forever attacking or running around those same obstruc tions, changing its course continually. The diffi
culty due to the enormous amount of detritus in the river may be realized when it is said that the amount of sediment brought down annually is estimated by C. C'. Babb at 406,280,000 tons, and other geologists have made similar estimates. Straightening the river, as has been at various times popularly suggested. would, on account of the huge volume of water, turn it into all controllahie torrent. Dredging is not practicable, as the river frequently deposits as much as fifteen feet of silt in one place in the course of a single year, and as frequently removes it in the course of a single week or less. The quality of the soil itself also makes diking and resetting peculiarly difficult. The force of the tremendous current of the river directed frgainst the foundation of any work. that !nay be placed on its hanks is likely at any thee to remove that foundation. When the report of the commission was made in ]S50 it was decided to combine the jetty and levee There were few natural advan tages to be utilized, and it was recognized that nothing could be done that could be declared absolutely permanent, and that the actual river lied could never be made to hold all the flood waters that certain to come down. What has been attempted, and in sonic measure accom plished. is to take advantage of the river's own poeuliarities, and by strengthening natural ob structions. here and there, rather than by re moving to persuade the stream, instead of forcing it, to follow a given route.