We have not space at this moment to advert to the various schemes which have been presented and urged for the improvement of this western navigation, but shall be happy on some other occasion to do so. The remaining sheets of our paper will be rather occupied with some reflections upon the "Passes of the Mississippi," which conduct its great waters into the gulf, the proposed methods of improving their depth and navigation, and of securing safety to the immense shipping seeking outlet and egress here.

of the water from low-water mark is 50 feet,| but in the year 1832 an extraordinary flood was experienced. The river began to rise early in February, and on the 18th of that month it was 63 feet above low-water mark, and the lower parts of Cincinnati and Covington were flooded. The river here is 1,006 feet wide, and the velocity of the stream at its height 61 miles per hour. The water discharged by the rise of the river above low water alone, would fill a lake of one square mile in surface, 107 feet deep, in one hour. The surface drained by the Ohio and its nu- The mouths of the Mississippi have been merous tributaries is about 77,000 square undergoing incessant changes so far as our miles, and water four inches in depth on this records extend, and we might add, so far as surface would be sufficient to maintain the the history of the river can be traced. Old river at the above height and velocity for channels have been filling up and new ones fourteen days. Such a flood as this has forming; at the same time that a continued scarcely been known since the first settlement sedimentary deposit has forced the delta itself of the country. There are no considerable falls in the river, excepting at Louisville, Kentucky, where it descends 224 feet in the course of two miles. Even over these, boats pass in high water. But they have been obviated by a canal around them, which admits of the passage of the largest steamboats. The current of the Ohio is very gentle; at the mean height of the river the current is about three miles an hour, at high water it is more, but at low water not more than two miles. During five or six weeks in the winter, the navigation is obstructed by floating ice. The Ohio and its tributaries have not less than 5,000 miles of navigable waters. The following distances have been derived from the Western Pilot, and are doubtless correct: From Pittsburg to Steubenville, O., is 70 miles; to Wheeling, Va., 92 miles; to Marietta, O., 174 miles; to Gallipolis, O., 2644 miles; to Portsmouth, O., 349 miles; to Maysville, Ky., 397 miles; to Cincinnati, O., 455 miles; to Lawrenceburg, Ia., 4794 miles; to Louisville, Ky., 587 miles; to New Albany, la., 591 miles; to the mouth of the Cumberland river, Ky., 900 miles; mouth of Tennessee river, Ky., 911 miles; mouth of Ohio, 959 miles."

continually to encroach upon the sea. The depth of water afforded in these channels has never been equal to the requisitions of commerce, and it is only by dint of the most enormous application of steam power, and ploughing through deep beds of sand, that the largest class of ships are enabled to navigate the channel. Considerable expense is always incurred in this manner, and delays prejudicial to trade. We have known of a ship, the Coromandel, in one instance, grounded in the Pass thirtynine days. Could it be expected otherwise than that these impediments should be greatly detrimental to the interests of the whole valley having this common outlet?

In 1720, of all the Passes, the south one only was in use. A Report amongst the French Colonial Records, now in Paris, of date about 1730, gives the depth from ten to twelve feet on the bars, varying each year according to the violence of the winds, etc. Another Report by M. Paria gives a depth of seventeen feet to one of the Passes which had hitherto been but twelve feet only, and argues that twenty-two feet might be insured by dredges. The employment of two vessels three months in the year was tried during a portion of this time by the West India Company, but The free and uninterrupted navigation of it worked badly. "A flute was then placed these great inland waters must of course be a inside of the bar and sunk into eighteen feet matter of prime interest to the country. They by means of wells built for that purpose, inare to the populous nations on their banks as side such vessel, and filled up with water. the ocean itself, over which commerce and This vessel was placed close to the bank of not kings preside. No construction of state the bar for the purpose of receiving the carpowers, as contradistinguished from federal, goes of vessels that could not cross. It was can exclude these arteries of trade from the soon perceived that the flute, receiving the pale of government regard and protection. whole power of the current, was forcing a They are points of national concern. No passage of twenty-five feet through the Pass. state or alliance of states can apply the The whole matter was immediately communiremedies which their exigencies require. No cated to government." narrowed views of economy and retrench- The following sketch represents the mouth ment, no prospective expenditure, however of the Mississipi in May, 1852, with the quanvast, could be allowed to deter the legisla tity of water at various points, the vessels ture of the Union from approaching the sol- aground, the amount of damage done, etc.: emn act of duty which is involved here.

Drawn by DAVID D. PORTER, Capt. U. S. N., and commanding Mail Steamship Georgia, and published by order of Committee Chamber of Commerce: Caldwell, Stanton, Owen, Skipwith and Sumner,

The Middlesex and cargo got damaged (by collision) on the bar $30,000, and returned to repair. Many other vessela than those above were aground at the same time, awaiting a swell from southeasterly gales,

Examined before the Committee on Com-1 merce of the Legislature, in March, 1846, William D. Talbot, a resident of the Balize for twenty-five years, used the following language:

Dredging N. E. Pass..
Do. S. W. Pass..

$160,000

210,000

$370,000

with an annual subsequent expenditure of $72,000 more.

Closing the Passes..
Jette at N. E. Pass..
Jette at S. W. 46
Contingenceis, &c.....

$214,500

100,000

182,500

30,000

$527,000

"The bars at the various Passes change very often. The channels sometimes change two or three times in a season. Occasionally one gale of wind will change the channel. The bars make to seaward every year. The South-west Pass is now the main outlet. It has been so for only three years, as at that time there was as much water in the North-east Pass as in it. The South-east Pass was the main ship channel twenty years ago; there is only about six feet water in that Pass now, and where it was deepest then, there is only a few inches of water at this time. The visible The line of the ship canal is proposed shores of the river have made out into the Gulf two from a point two and a quarter miles below or three miles within his memory. Besides the depo- Fort Jackson, and extending seven miles to sit of mud and sand, which form the bars, there fre- the shore of the Gulf, and thence by a jette, quently arise bumps or mounds near the channel, which divert its course. These bumps are supposed 1760 yards to 30 feet water. The canal to to be the production of salt springs, and sometimes be 100 feet wide at top, and thirty feet deep. are formed in a very few days. They sometimes rise The cost of this magnificent work is estimated

four or five feet above the surface of the water. He knew one instance when some brick that were thrown overboard from a vessel outside the bar, in three fathoms water, were raised above the surface by one of these banks, and were taken to the Balize and used in building chimneys. In another instance, an anchor which was lost from a vessel, was lifted out of the water, so that it was taken ashore. About twenty years ago a sloop, used as a lighter, was lost outside the bar in a gale of wind; several years afterwards she was raised by one of these strange formations, and her cargo was taken out of her."

thus:

Whether this amount be held too vast for Lieut. Poole, of the United States En- an annual commerce departing or entering gineers, in his Report of February 8, 1847, the river, now of $100,000,000, is a question remarks: "Great changes have taken place we shall not take time to solve. Of the pracin the last fifteen years in this (the South- ticability of such a canal there can be no east) and the North-east Pass, which has been doubt. If we are content to leave unimdeepening while this has been filling up." It proved the channel of the river, private enis stated where the island, shown upon sheet No. 3, now is, there was at that period six fathoms water. The process seems to be still going on; the space between this island and Antonio being nearly covered by a shoal, the centre of which is already above water. Dur- The subject of pilotage over the bars of the ing a few days that two ships were lying river has for a long time excited deserved inaground on the middle bank of the South- terest in Louisiana, and also in contiguous west Pass, in eight feet water, a channel states. A history of this question would not formed between them, through which a ship be out of place here, particularly as from late of sixteen feet draught passed out without developments it would hardly seem to be obstruction! settled.

The project of deepening or improving these outlets has been for a long time before the general government, and special reports upon the subject prepared by the engineer service after extended surveys.

Three methods have been principally insisted upon, with different degrees of merit and expense:

1st. To deepen by dredging-machines one or two of the Passes

2d. To close up all but one of them where they leave the river trunk.

3d. To cut a canal from the river to the gulf. All of these are regarded practicable. Supposing the first and second adopted together, Captain Chase estimates the expense as follows, to give sufficent depth of water:

terprise will find a harbor for our commerce at some other point than the levee of NewOrleans. Ship Island may afford such a one for the heaviest tonnage, and a railroad locomotive be substituted for the laborious" tow."

At the cession of Louisiana to the United States, a monopoly of the pilotage was in the hands of one Ronquile, appointed under the Spanish crown. This man was succeeded by two others, who bought out his establishment, and amassed a fortune in the course of a few years. The duties of these pilots were performed by deputies, common sailors picked up in the city, and the fees allowed were two dollars a foot with certain other perquisites.

The law of 1805 empowered the governor to appoint two or more sufficient persons to be branch pilots. Unlimited competition was the result. The masters and wardens of NewOrleans were constituted a board of examination for pilots,

The Act of 1837, now of force, introduced

The

a revolution in the system. The governor the night. It was a place dangerous to visit: appoints under it not exceeding fifty branch the savageness of man invested the desolation pilots, who are to be citizens of the United of nature with appalling attributes. States, and have resided two years in Louisi- Balize is located upon the margin of the Misana; examined by a board of examiners, and sissippi, a short distance above the North-east recommended by it to the master and wardens Pass; in front the river flows sullenly; all of New-Orleans, and by them to the execu- around is a prairie overgrown with the rank tive. This board of examiners to be from luxuriance of the tropics; the waters of the the pilots themselves, and consist of three gulf in daily tides cover the face of the earth members. Each pilot to give bond in the sum round about, many miles; there is not a tree, of one thousand dollars. Deputy pilots are nor a mound, nor a monument of any sort, forbidden, and none but a branch pilot shall unless placed there by the hand of man, to conduct the business. The rate of pilotage relieve a monotony that oppresses the beupon all vessels indiscriminately is fixed at holder. The land itself is but a recent ac$3.50 per foot, without other charge whatever. quisition from the ocean, wrenched thence by Against this system a protest has been the great father of rivers. This dreary and made by the New-Orleans Chamber of Com- inhospitable vision was the first that greeted merce, and a committee of the Legislature the stranger approaching our shores from the charged during last year with the subject, seaward; and it is appalling to reflect that after severe investigation and examination of the character of the people who dwelt there, a large number of witnesses selected from the pilots, the ship and tow-boat captains, ship owners, and merchants, presented a report which lies before us upon the table.

and held appointments from the state, was yet more savage than the scene that surrounded them, and impressed the mind with ideas of our national qualities, as gloomy as the opinions such a spectacle might inspire of the natural features of our country.

The committee support the present system against those that preceded it or are proposed in its stead, and furnish a beautiful and "It was not surprising that your predecessors graphic sketch of the country which has been endeavored to remodel a system, or systems, redeemed under its influence, and of the do- under which the vestibule of the state was mestic life and condition of those who are thronged by the worst description of men. employed in the pilot service. We make no Nor is there wanted a reason why they, who apology for a lengthened extract from the Re-approached our shores to find themselves port, which will give no inadequate notion of the region known as the Balize in the beginning of the present century and now:

"Your committee have ascertained to their entire satisfaction, that every system that had ever been in force in this state, from the cession of Louisiana to the passage of the act of March 13th, 1837, had proved a total failure. Whether as regards the interests of commerce, the advancement of social order, or the behests of morals and civilization, they had one and all fallen short of the ends and purposes of their creation.

"On this point your committee have taken ample and unbroken testimony, without a dissenting voice. The whole evidence shows that, from the existence of the state as a portion of the confederacy, up to the year 1837, the pilot service was negligently performed, and more especially were the persons engaged in it, as a body, a desperate, worthless, reckless class of men. The Balize, during that period, was a scene of barbarous strife and drunken debauch.

amid a class of men more dangerous than the deep they had escaped, made an outcry against the laws that encouraged or could not repress their outrages. Nor was it possible for a service, requiring sober, discreet, and intelligent men, to be conducted properly by such as spent their lives in daily broils and midnight wassail.

"The experiments to infuse respectability and character into the pilot service resulted in the act of the 13th March, 1837. The effect of that act the committee will endeavor to explain in as brief a space as possible; and in this connection they will also attempt to point out the peculiar provisions of the law which in their opinion have, more than others, brought about the change that has been so beneficial and apparent.

"Shortly after the passage of the act of 1837, the pilots selected under it formed themselves into an association for their better governance, and the more prompt and efficient discharge of their duties. It will be seen that the act provided that there should be no deputy "Your committee have been informed by pilots; every person in the association was, witnesses of unblemished character, who have therefore, a full branch pilot, and the equal of resided at the Balize, both befere and after his compeers. The immediate effect of this the passage of the act of 1837, that anterior provision was the elevation of the character to that law it was a mere mud bank, whose of the pilots as men. There was no inequalnatural loathsomeness was made more in ity between them-no superiors, no inferiors; tolerable by the beastly scenes enacted there. every man who had heretofore occupied a Riots and broils were daily exhibitions, and subordinate sphere of life was raised in his low revelry and debauches the pastimes of own esteem. He was no longer a menial;

his responsibilities were increased, and with| it his dignity and self-respect.

"The association was founded upon the broadest principles of equal rights. The business of the company was placed under the superintendence and control of a principal and board of directors, or rather executive committee. The by-laws regulating these appointments made them elective by the pilots in commission, and so limited the periods of service, and arranged the terms of reeligibility, as to secure to each, in his turn, a share in the administration of the affairs of the association. The salutary influences of this system were soon manifested, in a total change in the habits, manners, and morals of the Balize; order succeeded confusion; soberness of living followed the scenes of riot and debauchery before prevalent; and the growth of social amenities rooted out the wild and poisonous weeds which had sprung up in that hot-bed of vice and profligacy.

"The change in the physical features of the Balize is not greatly less obvious than in its moral qualities. A village of comfortable and convenient houses has sprung up like bright exhalations. A narrow strip of ground, fronting neat dwellings, has been wrested from the returning tides. By small additions, such as could be made in the intervals between the claims of duty, they have formed an embankment for the purposes of horticulture. The earth forming this artificial batture has been taken from the depths of the river. It is the product of years of labor. Each residence has a parterre before it; and here the matrons of the Balize and their daughters spend their leisure in beautifying the blasted desolation of nature. A more imposing instance of the power of law, when exerted for the dignity of man-for his protection, for the conservative instincts of our species-can nowhere be found. That there should be now a wellordered society in this once sink of iniquity; that domestic virtues should hallow the abode of profligacy; that children should be pointed the ways of wisdom, where yet a little while the stern and formed character of men could not resist the force of abasing example; that flowers should be taught to grow upon a waste, where lately a vertical sun and the waters of the ocean held alternate dominion; that religion, peace and order should reign over a spot cursed with inhospitalities, and terrible from the depravity of its inhabitants, is a triumph which the law may boast, which civilization may rejoice over, which the state may claim as all her own.

"In the benefits of these ameliorations, commerce has also participated, for a more intelligent class of persons are brought to its assistance. It is in proof that the pilot service has been better conducted since 1837 than it ever was before-a proposition which scarcely required proof, unless it were doubtful whether sober, industrious, competent and respectable men are more capable of discharging responsible duties than sots and sealoafers."

"Another change more remarkable, but perhaps equally natural, was wrought by the act, in the domestic relations of the pilots. It was a rare thing to see a married woman at the Balize during the existence of the ancient systems, which were overthrown in 1837. Upon the disappearance of stews, lewd resorts, and places of public drinking, more sedate and rational views of life supplanted the savage and guilty notions that had so long swayed the conduct of the pilots; and that provision of the law which made members of their own body a board of examiners, giving to them the right to select their own associates, and in a good measure to purge the Balize of the worthless characters who might otherwise infest it, emboldened them to take wives to themselves, and perfect the reform by adding the claims of domestic connections to the induce ment to a well-regulated social organization. "The change produced by these combined influences upon the morals of the Balize is scarcely credible. It has been snatched like a brand from the burning-a diviner spirit has breathed upon it-a more exalting appreciation of the duties of citizenship has pos- The following facts were elicited from witsessed its inhabitants. They have become nesses in the course of examination before" fathers of families; children have grown up the committee:-There are forty-seven pilots around them, whose prattle awakens other now enrolled. The full complement of fifty emotions than those that night revels and has almost always been secured. A pilotbrawdy songs once stirred within them. Nor do they stop here. They have established a public school to educate these children for the duties of republicans. They have built up a reading room for the improvement of themselves as well. They have established a police there, too, to suppress disorder. The characteristics of the place are peace, order, progress. The abode of vice, lawlessness and profligacy, has been redeemed, and consecrated to the humanizing influences of the age-education, moral culture, and habits of industry, sobriety, and economy.

boat is ever stationed at the South-west Pass, and cruises southward and eastward; the South-west Pass came into use in 1880, previously the South-east was the main channel; four other boats cruise from the North-east Pass. Boats with five or six pilots remain at sea until they have all taken ships. The gulf coast is extensive and complicated; sun often seen only through fogs faintly for months at a time; pilots guide then by soundings and their knowledge of bottoms. The population of the Balize is 300 to 350. There are at the South-west Pass 60 or 70 more. Mortality