It Should Be Remembered That Upon This Board Are General Gilmore,
General Comstock, And General Suter, Of The United States Engineers;
Professor Henry Mitchell (The Most Competent Authority On The Question
Of Hydrography), Of The United States Coast Survey; B. B. Harrod, The
State Engineer Of Louisiana; Jas.
B. Eads, whose success with the
jetties at New Orleans is a warrant of his competency, and Judge Taylor,
of Indiana.
It would be presumption on the part of any single man, however skilled,
to contest the judgment of such a board as this.
The method of improvement proposed by the commission is at once in
accord with the results of engineering experience and with observations
of nature where meeting our wants. As in nature the growth of trees and
their proneness where undermined to fall across the slope and support
the bank secures at some points a fair depth of channel and some degree
of permanence, so in the project of the engineer the use of timber and
brush and the encouragement of forest growth are the main features. It
is proposed to reduce the width where excessive by brushwood dykes, at
first low, but raised higher and higher as the mud of the river settles
under their shelter, and finally slope them back at the angle upon which
willows will grow freely. In this work there are many details connected
with the forms of these shelter dykes, their arrangements so as to
present a series of settling basins, etc., a description of which would
only complicate the conception.
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