mouth to its source, which is near the 33d degree of latitude, and through these channels aids in drawing off the surplus water of the Mississippi, while it continues to rise; when the Mississippi, how ever, retires within its banks, the waters in these bayous take a different direction, and are returned through the same channels into the Mississippi. Particular local causes will produce this effect at particular points; but the general cause, so far as these bayous connect with the Tensa, will be found in the fact that there is not a sufficient vent for the waters of the upper plain at the point of connexion with the lower plain of Louisiana.

The

Tensa is also connected, in times of high water, at several points, with the Washita and its branches. When the Mississippi has risen to a point a few feet below its natu, ral banks, the whole of the upper plain of Louisiana is divided by the natural channels which connect the Mississippi with the Tensa, and the Tensa with the Washita, into a number of distinct islands of various extent. The banks of the rivers and the natural channels which connect them are very generally the most elevated lands; and each and all these islands might be reclaimed from inundation by embankments, thrown entirely around them, of from six to twelve feet high, provision being made to take off the rain water, and that occasioned by leakage and accidental crevices, in the banks, with machinery. While the Mississippi is rising, the waters are carried off through these natural channels and their outlets into the lakes and the lowest and most de. pressed parts of the plain. During this process, there are currents and

counter currents in every possible direction; but when the floods have attained their greatest known height, then this whole plain be. comes covered with water, from a few inches to twelve feet deep, as its surface may be more or less depressed; and if it could be exposed to view, would exhibit the appearance of an immense lake, with a few insulated spots dispersed throughout it, such as the island of Sicily, the banks of the lakes Concordia, Providence, and Washington, and some very narrow strips partially distributed along the banks of the Mississippi and the other water courses. If the whole of the upper plain were reclaimed in the manner above mentioned, then the waters being contracted into much narrower channels would necessarily be very considerably elevated above the point to which they now rise; and passing off on the lower plain with greater elevation and greater rapidity, and having only the present natural channels of outlet to the gulf, the inevitable consequence would be, that the whole of the lower plain would be inundated, and probably parts of Attakapas and Opelousas would again be subject to inundation.

The reclamation of both the plains of Louisiana will depend, under any possible plan that may be proposed, upon the practicability of tapping the Mississippi and Red rivers, at one or more points, and to an extent that may draw off rapidly such a quantity of water as will prevent the refluent waters now collected just above the 31st degree of latitude, from rising to the heights to which they now do, and the practicability of delivering the waters into the ocean within periods equal to those in which they

were drawn off. We have seen that the natural channels of the Lafourche, Plaquemine, Iberville, and the Chafalaya, have so reduced the mass of water in the Mississippi, below their points of afflux, as to enable individuals, by very moderate embankments, to confine that part of the Mississippi within its banks. The Lafourche is the only one of these natural channels that takes off the waters to the ocean so rapidly and directly as to enable individuals to erect levees or embankments along its whole course. The passes of the Rigolets, and at Berwick's bay, not being sufficient to take off the waters which flow through them as fast as they are discharged into their resevoirs, it is evident that no beneficial effect could be derived from tapping the Mississippi at any point on its eastern bank, or at any point on the Western bank above the Lafourche, unless the capacity of the outlets at Berwick's bay and the Rigolets be greatly enlarged The passes at the Rigolets are well known; and it is probable that by enlarging them, and cutting off that portion of the waters of Pearl river which now flows through them, they might be made adequate to take off, in a sufficiently short period, the waters of Iberville and those of the short rivers of Beliciana, so as to prevent that portion of the plain between the Iberville and the city of New-Orleans from being inundated, except so far as the waters of Ponchartrain, elevated by high winds and tides, may produce that effect. It is only, therefore, on the west bank of that river, or the south bank of Red river, that the proposed tappings can be made with the prospect of a successful issue.

The course of the Mississippi from Donaldsonville to New-Orleans being nearly parallel to the gulf, and the distance to the gulf across that part of the plain being much shorter than that by its natural channel to tide water, that por. tion of the river presents eligible points for tapping, particularly near to New-Orleans; the commerce of which, in time not perhaps distant, may require a deep cut to be made to the gulf. The width of the river

at

Donaldsonville being about seven hundred yards, the rise above its natural banks about one yard, and its velocity two and a half miles an hour; if, then, by one or more tappings below this point, a volume of water of the above dimen. sions could be carried off to the ocean with equal velocity, then would the highest elevation of the river be reduced very considerably every where below such tapping, and for some distance above. Such a reduction of the elevation of this part of the river, aided by the clearing out of the rafts from the Chafa. laya, would possibly produce so great a reduction of the refluent waters at the junction of the Red and Mississippi rivers, as to enable individuals to proceed gradually to the reclamation of the whole of the upper plain by common embankments. It would then require only an increased capacity to be given to the outlets of the lake of Attakapas, to insure the reclamation of both plains. But if this effect cannot be produced by the tappings below the Lafourche, then they must be made at points higher up, either between Plaquemine and the Chafalaya, or at a point about the mouth of the Bayou Lamourie, or Du Lac, on Red river. A reference to the map will show that

the waters of Red river can be taken to the Gulf from this point in an almost direct course, through channels that it is more than probable they formerly occupied, and in a distance of less than one half of that by which they reached the ocean through the channel of the Mississippi, and by forty or fifty miles less than that through the channels of the Chafalaya. A deep cut at this point, of ten miles, through an alluvial soil, would discharge the waters of Red river in Bayou Bouf; and as these waters would pass through an alluvial plain having probably a fall of not less than sixty feet in seventy miles from the point of tapping, there is reason to believe that they would work for themselves, without much artificial aid, a channel of great capacity.

The question then arises, how are these waters, in addition to the superabundant waters of the Chafalaya, which already overflow all the valley of the lake of Attakapas, to be taken off to the gulf? To solve this question satisfactorily, it will be necessary to take a view of the outlets of the lake of Attakapas. The Teche is a natural canal, almost without feeders or outlets, except at its mouth, and having no doubt been a channel for a much larger mass of water in time past, its adjacent lands have been formed precisely as those of the Mississippi have been, and its banks of course occupy the highest elevation of the country through which it runs. For forty miles above its mouth it is contracted by the waters of the Attakapas lake on the one side, and by those of the gulf on the other, so as to exhibit almost literally a mere tongue of land just above high water mark.

It enters Berwick's bay about eighteen miles from the Gulf. Nearly opposite to the mouth of the Teche is the mouth of Bayou Black, or Bayou Bœuf. This bayou, like the Teche, is also a natural canal, occupying the highest elevation of a narrow tract of land, extending eastwardly nearly to the Bayou Lafourche, that is seldom inun. dated, and which would seem to be a prolongation of the Attakapas country; inducing a belief that the Teche formerly discharged its waters at a point farther east, into a bay that occupied the whole of the present plain, from the Attakapas lake to Bayou Lafourche and the Mississippi. It is this elevated ridge that causes the indentation in the lower plain to be deluged by the waters of the Mississippi, which, forcing a passage for themselves across the Teche, have formed an outlet called Berwick's bay. This path is narrow, and is about seven or eight feet deep, passing in part of its course through lands not of recent alluvion, and disembogues into the bay of Achafolia, through the lake of that name, and two or three other outlets.

Following up, then, this indication of nature, by cutting artificial outlets from the lake of Attakapas across the Teche, at different points, for a distance of fifteen or twenty miles above its mouth, at such places as the drains emptying into the ocean may approach nearest to Attakapas lake, giving to such cuts any width that may be required, and a depth that may be on a level with low water mark, and embanking the lake of Attakapas so as to raise it three feet above its present surface, it is believed that a capacity may be obtained for taking off any volume of water that

An estimate of the expense of excavating Outlets from the Lake of the Attakapas to the Gulf of Mexico.

On the presumption that the wa. ters of the gulf of Mexico, at low tide, reach within six miles of the lake and it is believed that they do, at several points, between the Bayou Cypress and Berwick's bay -let positions at one or more of the most favourable of these points be selected, the aggregate width of which shall be two thousand yards; let such portions of these positions as may be inundated at high water, be drained by common embankments, so that oxen may be used in removing the earth; let excava. tions be made through them of such widths as may be best adapted to the removal of the earth, leaving, however, the proportion of excavation to that of embankment as three to one. A number of canals will then be formed, with an embank. ment between each, the excavation of which, their beds being on a level with low water, would not average a depth of three feet. These proportions will give the amount of excavation as equal to 15,840,000 cubic yards, which, at 20 cents the cubic yard, gives $3,168,000 as the expense of excavating outlets, which, at low tide, would have the capacity of dis

charging from the lake, with great velocity, a column of water of fif teen yards in width and one yard in depth, at the point where it left the lake.

No estimate, with any tolerable approximation to accuracy, can be made of the expense of excavating a deep cut from Red river to the Bayou Boeuf, and of enlarging the bed of that bayou; of the embank. ments along the Attakapas, necessary to give it the required elevation; or for tide locks, machinery, &c. until an accurate survey on the ground made. It is possible that the judicious expenditure of five million dollars, by the government, would be sufficient to make the excavations, and erect embank. ments, tide locks, and other ma chinery, that would be necessary to give such a control over the waters of the Mississippi, and its outlets, as to reduce them so nearly within their banks at high floods as to enable individual capital to progress with the entire embankment of them, and the reclamation of the whole plain.

The quantity of land belonging to the government within the limits of the alluvial plain may be estimated at three millions of acres, which, at a minimum price of ten dollars per acre, would be upwards of thirty millions of dollars.

In the name of the Most Holy and Invisible Trinity. The United States of America and His Majesty the King of Sweden and Norway, equally animated with the desire of extending and conso

lidating the commercial relations subsisting between their respective territories, and convinced that this object cannot better be accom plished than by placing them on the basis of a perfect equality and re