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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 1877)
December. THE AVEST SHORE. 53 IMPROVEMENT of the Mississippi. I Capt. Eads is lecturing upon a plan for the improvement of the Mississippi, which would i render it navigable for large vessels as tar aa the mouth of the Ohio. Iu a recent lecture in , Cincinnati, he said: "Any system of levees which attempts to in close these wide places in the river, will retain ! the fruitful cause of its own failure and entail; untold cost for maintenance, because the levees are the cause of the rapid destruction of the banks, the crevasses and the cut-oils. They arrest the uniform ami speedy passage of the floods to the sea, for at each one of them the eurrent is retarded and the flood bight elevated. "I do not propose to grapple with the floods, bnt with the causes which produce them. Throughout the entire basin we see repeated illustrations of the fact that the greater the vol ume the lower the slope. Turu the waters of (led river down the Mississippi, by closing Atchafalaya, and we will increase the volume and reduce the slope. If it were reduced from the Passes to Red river only a quarter of an inch.it would lower the high-water mark nearly even feet at Red river, and the ame MXttm all the way up. It would then le Rteeper than and the quantity of sediment carried in the 1 water. I believe that every atom of sand or earth from the moment it enters the riv. r until 1 it is bathed by the salt waters of the Gulf, is Controlled by laws as fated and certain a those that rule the planets. "III anticipated results these plain ue im mensely different. Due contemplates the flood waters rising, from LO to SO feet above the sur-, face of the land between levees, which must in volve an euonn.uis and iMMpjmi)ina mttUn fur repairs ami maintenance, with Do improve ment "d the channel. The other, in effect, lifts hove thefloodi forevereaereaeqaaltotheStatee of Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode bland, Con necticut and New Hampshire, and opens up 1,100 miles of navigation to the largest ocean hipping into the very heart of the Mississippi valloy. It removes from the channel the snags that now infest it, prevcuta cut oil's ami caving batiks, and discuses with tbeoootl) and uncer tain system of levee protection, ithotit imposing any important burden of maintenance ip i the country." Wonderful as these promises seem, there is little doubt in the minds of those who have in telligently studied the action of the currents in riv.-r-i fi.'iitv Hir,i. .. nTln-t1 soil.. tMt flu- I relation between the Velocity of the current THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. JONES'S CHRISTMAS DINNER. This hoary topic has beat hut diMOeeed by Be delayed his departure for homo in tho Prof. Hawkins, of the Manchester, England, owning uutil the 10 30 tram, arriving there Geological Society. He thinks that m taking about P. When he reached the station no ono stock to use a mercantile term of the net re- was there whom he could ask with propriety to suits of geological and pala outological iiupin j takt his haikete and turkeys home. "Never during the last session, the additions to our mind," thought ho, "Mv neighbors will see knowledge had const ted in detail rather than what a model family man lain, carrying my own the dieooTery of gn at principles: ami the dinner home." He experienced some little aim ground already conquered from the region of onlty In arranging hie load, being aoaeenetomed the unknown bad been reanrveyed and mon to carrying more than his coat or umbrella; but minntelv parcelled up, insteal of being in- aUrted' ou hi walk with the turkeys around creeaed by large slices of territory. Be re- his neck, as herewith shown, and numerous terred to the recent discoveries at Ofeewell bottles sticking suggestively out of the basket, t'nigs. on the lMrdcrs of IK'rbysbire and Not- Meantime there had Won a terrible and un tinghamshiiv. by which the fact was established looked-foi commotion in Jones's domestic circle, that even in the paleolithic age the hunters of unknown to him. as be came triumphantly up the reindeer, horse, mammoth and ether orea- the road followed by a little black dog Huffing tores Weil progressive, and that the cave- at the contents of a bottle of wine which had dwellers of the pleistocene age wen- to be been broken, and was making a reedy track he looked Upon from the same point of view as bind him. Biddy, becoming suddenly offended mankind at the present time as one man, al- iu the morning from some unknown cause, hid ways living end incessantly learning. Among declined further service, and no "Chinee" ba the additions made l. these eaves to the fauna iog available, and no new girl to Iw had at that of the north of England was that of the gnat late hour, Mrs. J. was iu a state of despair, mWr toothed Ifo JtaUvdtU tatidtlU, which , and was going to get the assistance of some of hitherto had only been met with iu twooaveme bee nuguWu when her haafcua met her tkjm .niNKS'S C HItlsTMAs DINNER. it ie for 100 miles below New Orleans. Ont Icte are pernicious, and inevitably raise the Hood line. The river should be brought to a uniformity of width, and where ita volume u subdivided by islands, it should le confined to a single channel. I do not proioee to shorten or straighten the river. Mature study has con vinced me that no cut-offs will be needed to re duce the flood line Iwlow the level of the land. I once thought that one or two might lie re- quired, ine ireaimcm. p. - . - a high-water treatment. A uniformity mm of ita banka will insure a uniformity M deptn, and not leas than '20 feet from Cairo to the sea in low water. A uniformity in width will bring a uniformity of current, which will more rapidly illenhewe the flood, and it will stop the caving of the banka. , . ., "ThU plan ia radically different from the plan of the United State Commission of hngi neera. It ie differeot in design, in the theory- and in the aetnmption of existing conditions in the bed of the river. The Commission believes there exiata in the bed of the river strata of hard blue clay of older formation, which Wh siata the action of the current -almost like marble.' I believe the river made the bed U flow, in from Cairo to the eae, end that the car rent can take from it and add to it with rapidity and ease wherever it ia made quick or alow. TheCoounuanoodoeanotUlieva thore is any results mentioned can be attained and '-It feet Of water carried from New Orleans to the Ohm. JaTAXIbU Rotanv. An interesting evidence of Japanese education and enterprise wee brought to the Attn otlice the other day a DOOfe containing samples of 100 epeciee of Jepaue-c rood with the botanical name of the genus and the species in Utin and in Japanese, am notes iu Japancac. Three samples are given of each siK'Cies; one ir.ii""".. ... , tudinaf, and of tlieae MM radial and the other tangential, or at right angles to the radius. ! Thus the grain of the WOOd Ie shown in every 1 p,ition. The sample- arc very thin, ame of them not the hundredth part of an inch, M j that when lted in the book, they do not ,m.k it ciumey. STTTLTZJiA tirely toe wn ""-"VT elEZT aULa. the idea is tun ew - of its elocution doe great credit to their country. Am 7 . Moore ha. for aeveral year, been working at intervale to produce a simitar book of the woods of California. TU London FllejlWeili aays it has received information that Kar. fell throogb the treach ery of a Puha, who admitted the Russians to a commanding fort, and waa paid for it in Kent's Hole iu Oevonshire, and that of BUM hi the Jura. The figure M a horse upon a rib bone wee identical with tbooo left mum by the hunters of reindeer la th eaves of Auvergne, ami then-fore proved that the inhabit ante Of the i'ntswell caves during the time when i tho upper stratum was being accumulated we in i the same stage of artistic culture as the cave- dweller, of enuUieii France uid of Sw itzerland, i From the discoveries iu the caves in France, he I (Prof. Hawkins) had arrived at the conclusion I that thoae people weru represented in the pre. ent age by the K.kimis. This, however, must Iw viewed aa a pnd.al.le hyjK.thesis rather than . wall ascertained fact The uvuletice offered l.v ill tio- cv.s in the area from the Alps and the Pyrenees, as far north as llerhyshire, wa ! clear that pala-olitbie man lived iu PIDM while targe iimnir. oi renmcer win lyssw w iug here; or in other words, in the pleistocene state, when the Arctic .ninial. were abundant. m u I V.ti..1 tUnk .t I if. vet t. Ind., has closed ita doore on account of a defal cation by theCaahier. Some of the Supervisors of Iteneaeller countv, New York, hav. been indictad for fraodulently auditing bills egaimt tb county. Inn. Wife was raff BBUeh astonished .tithe extent of preparation, while her husltand's ap- It erance su.lileiily reminds lier oi mo aim icm Mariner:" tTnaav ami. Nl IIUmOBOOn Under the microscope, the solid part of honey ie eeonlto consist of myriad, of regularly -formed crystals; these crystals are for the BOM pert eiceemngiy thin and t ran ..rent, and very brittle, so that many of them are bmken and imiwrfect; but when entire they consist of sii-sided prism., apparently identical in form with those of cana sugar. It is pndtehle, however, that these represent the crystals of deitroae, aa they occur in honeys from which cane sugar ie nearly or wholly alawtiL Intermingled with the cryetala may also be - pollen granulee of different forms, sires, and structure, uften in such per fect condition that thry may 1m referred to the (Articular plant from which the juice, have been gathered. "What do you know about the prisoner V aeked the judge. "Only he's bigoted." "Big oted!" "Yea, an." "What do you mean by i ...i. .; " "WmII. iedif." eii.ls.iuod the wit ness, "he knows too much fob one niggab, aod not 'nuff fob two."