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Demorvalic atch
Bellefonte, Pa.,, May 6, 1927.
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CONTROLLING FLOODS
ON RAGING MISSISSIPPI
The dikes of Holland, so famed in
history, are toy affairs compared to
the vast levee system which Uncle
Sam has constructed in the effort to
tame the Mississippi river.
Picture an area equal to the States
of New Jersey, Massachusetts, New
Hampshire and Connecticut, filled
with cities and farms, and you will
begin to get an idea of the size of the
“overflow territory” which lies lower
than the surface of the river when the
Father of Waters goes on his spring
rampage.
With the Mississippi higher than it
has ever been in recorded history, it
is impossible to estimate how much of
the levee-pretected area is under wa-
ter. In addition to the lands flooded
along the Mississippi proper there are
countless square miles inundated by
the floods of tributary streams. The
flooded territory probably would
make a sizable European country.
The levee system, as an engineer-
ing project, is comparable in its mag-
nitude to the Panama Canal. It was
begun more than 200 years ago, soon
after the French settled Louisiana,
and it isn’t completed yet. Until
1882 levee construction was carried
on as a State and local affair.
In that year the Federal govern-
ment decided to co-operate, and since
then hundreds of millions of dollars
have been spent on the levees. No
less than half a billion cubic yards of
earth have been thrown up to con-
struct them.
No accurate estimates as to the
cost of completing the system are
available, but Congress has been ap-
propriating at the rate of $10,000,000.
annually for it and is pledged to ap-
propriate another $30,000,000 in the
next three years. :
. The Mississippi River Commission
in its last report to Congress an-
nounced that 1,185,000 miles of levees
had been completed and that the pro-
Ject called for the protection of a ter-
ritory more than 600 miles long and
fifty miles wide. These levees extend
almost continuously along the west
bank of the river from Cape Girar-
deau, Mo., nearly to the mouth of the
river. The east bank is protected by
high bluffs at Memphis and between
Vicksburg and Baton Rouge, but le-
vees are necessary approximately
four-fifths of the distance.
When it is remembered that the
Mississippi drains a watershed of 1,-
240,000 square miles, representing
most of the territory bounded by the
Rockies and the Appalachians, the
Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico,
it is not surprising that when the
great river goes on a spree it does it
in a wholehearted manner.
Normally about a mile wide, it ex-
Pands its width in places to as much
as fifteen miles, still keeping within
its levees, and it has been known to
rise as much as sixty-two feet. Its
width, strangely enough, is narrowest
at New Orleans, but its depth there
is also the greatest. At one point
In its channel opposite New Orleans
it is 215 feet deep.
It is navigable for ocean-going ves-
sels for two hundred miles from its
mouth. Its channel at low stage is
thirty-five feet all the way up to Ba-
ton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana,
and that city, with its oil exports, has
become one of the largest ports in the
United States. Farther up the river,
the constant deposits of silt carried
down from the north make dredging
hecessary to maintain a nine-foot
channel during the dry season.
The principal cities which lie below
the top of the protecting levees, con-
tain a population of more than 500,-
000. New Orleans, the metropolis of
the South, contains areas which now
are more than twenty feet below the
surface of the river. The levees there
are twenty-five feet high. In 1922,
when all flood records were last brok-
en, the crest of the river reached to
within four feet of the top of the le-
vee.
Other cities dependent upon levees
to keep out the floods are Baton
Rouge, with a population of 21,000;
Greenville, Miss., with 11,000; Hel-
ena, Ark., with 9,000, and Cape Gir-
ardeau with 10,000.
ven in flood, the Mississippi never
loses its dignity and always refuses
to hurry. Tt scorns to play the rag-
Ing torrent like lesser rivers. It
moves on majestically, risin slowl
bat mightily. That is why its ond;
are such long-drawn-out affairs, It
takes thirty days for the crest to
travel from Cairo to New Orleans.
Army engineers are strongly com-
mitted to the policy of completing the
levee system as the most feasible
method of solving the flood control
problem on the Mississippi. They be-
lieve that adequate levees insure the
greatest flood protection at the lowest
possible cost. They contend the low-
lands along the Mississippi can be
made virtually flood-proof by levees.
any elaborate and costly systems
of flood control by the construction of
huge reservoirs to take up the over-
ow have been proposed after the de-
sign of that worked out by the City
of Dayton after its disastrous flood
in 1913. But the Mississippi offers a
problem in flood control $0 much
greater that adoption of the reservoir
plan is not advisable, in the opinion
of army engineers.
Likewise, they give respectful at-
tention to the reforestation argument
and agree with much of it, but they
consider reforestation only an inci-
dental step in the task of controlling
the mighty Mississippi.
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Women Not “Weaker Sex”.
While the race always has regarded
man as the stronger of the species
he’s actually woman’s superior only
where tests of physical power are
concerned. In actual vitality and re-
sistance to disease woman is his su-
perior, says Dr. Harvey W. Wiley in
ood Housekeeping Magazine.
Most people think that women as
a rule are more prone to disease, less
resistant to suffering and quicker to
give way to bad health,” he says,
‘but statistics do mot support this
idea. Women’s average life is two
years longer than men’s. They go
through pangs of childbirth which
men could not withstand. They give
their vitality to the welfare and up-
bringing of their children,” and still
do a share of the world’s work that
matches man’s, he points out.
Trial List for May Coe irt.
Following is a list of the civil cases
to be tried during the second week of
the May term of court, which will
begin on the 23rd.:
Gordon Brothers Incorporated, a cor-
Kelley, trading and doing business as
Kelley Bros. Coal Co. Assumpsit.
Andrew Thal and Bertha Thal, his
wife, vs J. V, Foster. Trespass.
C. E. Hartsock vs. E. W. Winslow.
Trespass.
James F. Perry vs. Elmer E. Wat-
son and Nannie E. Watson. Eject-
ment.
Philip D. Foster vs. J. D. Musser.
Replevin.
M. I. Gardner vs. Highland Clay
Products company, a corporation. As-
sumpsit.
George A. Reiber vs. P. R. Camp-
bell. Trespass.
Della Reiber and George A. Reiber
vs. P. R. Campbell. Trespass.
General Motors Acceptance Corpor-
ation vs. H. A. Mark Motor Co. and
Alfred P. Butler. Replevin.
W. B. McLean Manufacturing Co.,
a corporation, vs. James Cocolin.
Replevin.
Charles S. Stover, trustee under the
last will and testament of J. Henry
Stoner, vs. A. J. Cummings, Admr. of
the estate of Nora M. Cummings, de-
ceased and A. J. Cumings, individual-
ly. Sci fa sur mortgage.
Dr. Celestin Simr, vice consul of
the consulate of the Czecho-Slovak
Republic, Pittsburgh, attorney in fact
for John Mintuck (John Mento) two
cases, one against the National Union
Fire Insurance Co., of Pittsburgh, and
the other against the United States
branch, the London Assurance Cor-
poration of London, Eng. Assump-
sit. s
Diet and Cancer.
The theory advanced by many per-
sons that eating a natural or wild diet
will prevent cancer has apparently
been contradicated by recent experi-
ments, reports Hygeia Magazine.
When mice, the type of animals es-
pecially suited to cancer experiments,
were placed on various diets, those
fed the wild diet had the highest can-
cer mortality and those fed an ap-
parently unbalanced diet had the low-
est. There was not the slighest ev-
idence that fried or well-cooked food
was associated with an increase in
cancer.
—The “Watchman” is the one reli-
able newspaper in Centre county on
which you can depend for all the
uews that’s worth reading.
poration, vs. M. D. Kelley and H. P. | ==
NEW MANAGER FOR
BELL TELEPHONE HERE.
F. L. Richards, at present manager
here for the Bell Telephone Company
of Pennsylvania has just been ap-
pointed special commercial represen-
tative for the company in William-
sport, effective May 1.
Mr. Richards has been manager
here since February, 1925, and his
friends in Bellefonte and vicinity are
congratulating him on his new ap-
pointment.
His place here will be filled by J.
H. Caum who has been plant wire
chief in Huntingdon for the Pennsyl-
vania Bell organization since 1920.
Mr. Caum joined the Bell company at
Altoona in 1918 and has served in
many capacities which have given
him a vast amount of experience in
telephone work, eminently fitting him
for his new office.
Mr. Caum will have complete
charge of the various telephone de-
partments operating here. In an-
nouncing the change the Telephone
company stated that all reports in re-
gard to telephone service should con-
tinue to be made to the chief operator
and that anything requiring repairs
should be reported to the repair clerk,
as at present. All other business with
the company, they say, should be re-
ferred to the manager’s office.
—Equal parts of olive oil or melted
butter and vinegar rubbed over fresh
meat will keep it in good condition
for several days, besides adding won-
derfully to its flavor and tenderness.
If you want a nice Porch Rocker, FREE, The Watchman will help
you get it. Come in and find out how it can be done.
71-16-t£
LUMBER?
Oh, Yes! Call Bellefonte 432
W.R. Shope Lumber Co.
Lumber, Sash, Doors, Millwork and Roofing
NITTANY SHOE STORE
Comfortable
Little Shoes
Soft and pliable, yet sturdily,
gracefully fashioned and with
water-proof soles, these are
the best shoes in the world for
the little folks.
BELLEFONTE, PA
The “telephone patrol” is a familiar sight on city
street and couniry highway
working.
oo
Any moment you may call for connection
with a telephone two, ten, 2 hundred or a
thousand miles away.
Your call may hop underground and emerge
somewhere across town.
It may follow one of the great cable high-
ways, or head off along some winding pole- /
line into the next county.
But, whichever it may be, your service is
constantly patrolled, in trucksand cars and afoot,
Yo SERVICE depends on more than just
the way your own instrument and line are
——T
ony
“Your service is constantly patrolled . . .
Jour million miles of wire in Pennsyloania™
SX along four million miles of wire in Pennsyl- =
NN NN vania—to see that storm and sleet, wind and
XX. NJ flood are out-manoeuvred—to see that the
praeen || track is quickly cleared for your call when the
oon dl 1 a)
ANS ST clements get the upper hand. He
These men are serving you personally. KX
With them it's not just an eight-hour day, ns?” AZ
but a job in your interest. { 31
Not just that the traffic shall flow along
normally, but that your call shall go through.
“Your call may kop underground . . . ” and whe
subterranean lines must be kept clear
THE BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY
OF PENNSYLVANIA
TO PERSONAL SERVICRE'!
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