Although no survey of this pass was made, it was ascertained from parties considered reliable that the depth of water over the bar at the entrance of the pass into Lake Pontchartrain was only 5 feet at ordinary low-water, and during northers nearly a foot less. Five thousand dollars would probably increase the depth to the advantage of commerce through the pass. The examinations west of the Mississippi River were on bayous of the delta of that river, where the present commerce is immense and constantly increasing. One class of these bayous has lost the connection with the Mississippi which the other class yet retains, and must be treated in a different manner from those receiving their supply from the Mississippi. Bayou Terrebonne is the only one examined belonging to this class. The entire class are now merely tide-bayous, and at their sea-ends the shoal bays are encroaching on the sea-marsh banks and tending to level down the little irregularities, not probably taking the 10-foot curve of the Gulf at all shoreward, but on the contrary advancing it, while washing away the narrow strips of sea-marsh near the outer ends of the bayous, which were always covered at high tides. So long as the connection with the Mississippi remains open, as is the case with La Fourche, the bayou will retain its side walls of sea-marsh and gradually push them seaward, while waves of the Gulf pile up a portion of the material carried out as a chain of coast islands. Between the mouths of La Fourche and Atchafalaya the whole delta front now appears to be undergoing this rounding-off and leveling process. There are many bayous included, all of which have lost their connection with their former source of supply in the Mississippi. Terrebonne and Timbalier Bays have become practically but one bay by the disappearance of the narrow tongue of sea-marsh which divided them in 1860, which was made and sustained only by additions received from the Mississippi through Bayou Terrebonne. So far as Bayou Terrebonne and similar bayous are concerned, no help can be given them which will materially improve them, except some tide-water canal which should connect the whole region from the Mississippi west, dredging through the sea-marsh, following the course of available bayou, bay, and lake channels to save dredging, opening in this way the entire seaboard to internal navigation to the Texas State line at least. The subject was noticed in the report on the inland water-route in 1874. Parts of this work are now being done by private enterprise on different charters from the State. There are several such canals that have been abandoned, and those that are kept open cost about as much for repairs as the receipts from tolls amount to. The remainder of the bayous examined are those which connect with the Atchafalaya. The first of these is Bayou De Glaise, which enters the Atchafalaya at Simmsport, a few miles below its head. It is only for a few months of the year that there is any natural supply of water for open navigation of this bayou, and that comes from Red River or back-water from the Mississippi. Lake Pearl is its head. The lake and its adjoining low cypress swamps will, as a reservoir, hold a supply sufficient to last through any but protracted droughts for lockage of the low-water season. Level-lines were not run on any of these examinations, but sufficient data were obtained from high-water marks and height reached by any given back-water to show that it will take but three locks, each of which would require a lift of 7 to 8 feet, to open this rich and productive country to commerce throughout the year. The plan for needle-dams, with permanent supports for the needles and abutments for the gates about 200 feet apart, using the walls of the bayou as lock-walls, is applicable to this bayou. The plan is a modification of that so extensively in use in France, and is so changed as to fit the peculiar circumstances of these bayous. At high-water needles would be removed and gates opened, giving free passage 25 feet wide. Evergreen village is 7 miles from what would be the head of permanent navigation with these improvements; it is situated on "The Bay Hills." Valleys are cut through this high land, the one between Avoyelles Prairie and Bay Hills being occupied by the De Glaise and Bayou Rouge, a connecting bayou, which, during very high water takes some of the water from Bayou De Glaise, 2 miles below Lake Pearl. Bayou Rouge is joined by Bayou Huffpower from the Boeuf, and, running to the southeast, reaches the Atchafalya at Churchville, where it has a dam to retain its water for navigation, which would otherwise be like that of the De Glaise. A small steamer brings out freight, and it is transferred across the levee at Churchville to larger steamer in the Atchafalaya. The Boeuf runs in great sweeping bends, such as must have been made by some much larger stream than it now is. It passes between the Bay Hills and the bluffs of Rapides and Saint Landry parishes, which it touches only near the town of Washington for a few miles, but the drainage of which now furnishes the entire supply of water for its navigation, as the former connection with Red River has been cut off by dams on Bayou Robert and Bayou Rapides. The Red River deposit is found throughout the whole series of Bayous Teche, Boeuf, Vermillion, and Atchafalaya; beneath it is this blue clay, wherever banks are so washed as to disclose their ancient courses. The Boeuf is now like a canal in its cross-section and needs but locks to make it one in fact. Above Washington the width of gates need not exceed 25 feet and the length of locks 200 feet, which is sufficient for its commerce and that of the De Glaise, but below Washington the width should be 45 feet and the length 300 feet as well as on the Teche. The reports on the Boeuf, Courtableau, and Teche contain the results of their examinations, but there is need of a thorough survey of the Atchafalaya and its many Connecting branches, known under many names, including Grand Lake and the whole series of channels from Red River down to Atchafalaya Bay. Small portions of these have been at times surveyed, but there is no connected accurate chart of the whole possible from existing data. The connection of the whole series with the Mississippi will probably be by means of a lock in Bayou Plaquemine, and by this route will the commerce of the Red River and its tributaries, as well as the western delta bayous, reach New Orleans, which is the natural center of the whole delta country. Major Benyaurd has made a survey, plans, and estimates for the improvement of this route in connection with the Red River; for this bayou navigation it is fully as important as for Red River. Nowhere else in the United States are the conditions similar to those of this Mississippi region. In other places ridges form the divides between streams and water runs to the streams. The area of tillable land includes in most cases all the land between where it is not mountainous, except those bottom-lands on the immediate banks of streams subject to so great an overflow as to endanger cultivation, while here in the delta all the tillable land is on the immediate banks of present or extinct streams and the slope is back towards swamps which receive the drainage and the overflow of the bayous and which are covered with cypress forests on the older swamps or with sea-marsh below near the Gulf. These banks are the only ridges. From the dependence of these bayous on the Mississippi or Red River for their supply of water above the level above which tide-water rises, many of them have so little water that they are useless for purposes of navigation during all the low-water season, during which in the sugar and rice districts, including all below Red River, the greatest depth is required for transportation of the products. Railroads cannot supply the want of transportation in this region, as wagon-freighting is difficult from softness of the roads. Sugar-houses and other buildings are, when possible, built on the banks of bayous in order the more easily to roll freight to and from boats. The plan recommended of making slackwater navigation for all these bayous, by making such locks as are needed to accomplish this object, and so making the locks that during high-water the gates can be opened and needles of the dams removed so that the current shall have free passage and sweep out the sediment deposited at lowwater seasons, will cost The benefits to be derived from making the improvements recommended in this report cannot be even approximately estimated. The plantations along all the bayous would have good water communication throughout the year. The bayous to which it is proposed to apply this system of slackwater navigation are, in fact, but natural canal channels, wanting but the locks to make them useful. Here of all the streams on this continent is the place to apply this system of improvements on a large scale, where the good to be derived from it will be greatest while its first cost is lowest. Yours, respectfully, Maj. C. W. HOWELL, Corps of Engineers, U. S. A. -4 H. C. COLLINS, In response to a resolution of the House of Representatives, rules for the guidance of naval vessels at sea. JANUARY 27, 1880.-Referred to the Committee on Naval Affairs. MARCH 10, 1880.-Recommitted to the Committee on Naval Affairs and ordered to be printed, to accompany bill H. R. 4430. NAVY DEPARTMENT, Washington, January 22, 1880. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the resolution of the House of Representatives, passed on the 9th instant, which requires the Secretary of the Navy to report to the House "the rules prescribed by the Navy Department for the guidance of naval vessels at sea; whether, in his opinion, the same are in conflict with the existing rules for the guidance of merchant vessels; and, if so, wherein such a conflict exists; and also what measures are, in his opinion, necessary to be taken to establish a system of international rules which shall apply to all naval and merchant vessels at sea," and in compliance therewith to submit the following report: Although certain principles with regard to the conduct of vessels meeting and passing each other at sea, common to all maritime nations, may be traced back almost as far as marine commerce itself, the attempts to embody these principles into rules for national or universal observance is of comparatively recent origin. As far as the naval vessels of a country are concerned, these principles are found embodied in regulations which are centuries old, and which form elements of the science of naval tactics. These regulations, however, in former times had little, if any, legal control over vessels of the merchant marines. As commerce increased in extent and importance, and as the control of vessels of the merchant marines passed from the hands of owners to those of local boards of trade, and from those of local to those of national boards, we find different nations introducing these rules as statutes for general observance; and as the science of maritime law became developed and the absolute freedom of the high seas came to be acknowledged by all maritime nations, the necessity for some universal law for the guidance of vessels on the ocean became apparent. The first movement towards establishing some universal law seems to have been made about the year 1842; the Government of Great Britain taking the initiative. In this year the British admiralty issued a set of orders prescribing certain lights to be used at night by all British vessels; the same order made a steering rule applicable to all British vessels that had previously been a board of trade rule only, and which was generally known as the "law of the port helm." (See Appendix G.) These rules were not formally submitted to other nations, but before 1844 the majority of the maritime nations of the world had adopted them either in whole or in part. In the United States they were adopted by the Navy Department only, appearing verbatim in a general order to all United States vessels. The law of the port helm was, however, very faulty, and in 1852 the British admiralty issued instructions, under the authority of an act of Parliament, to a committee, composed of officers of the royal navy and an Elder Brother of the Trinity House, to examine and report upon them. In consequence of the condemnatory report of this committee, a second committee was organized by act of Parliament, composed of officers of the royal navy, Elder Brethren of the Trinity House, and members of the board of trade, to frame laws for preventing collision at sea. These laws were submitted to Parliament in 1862. They were made statutory in Great Britain, and all other maritime nations were invited to examine them in the interests of commerce at large, and, if found suitable, to legalize them. In the course of the next two years thirty-four of the principal maritime nations of the world had approved and made statutory these laws. In 1877, it having been found that these laws did not fulfill the requirements of marine commerce, an act of Parliament was passed authorizing an examination of them by a board similar to the previous one, consisting of naval officers, Trinity House Brethren, and members of the board of trade. By this committee a revised set of laws was compiled and submitted to the government. The British Government submitted them to all the foreign maritime powers, and after sixteen of these powers had signified their approval of them and their intention to legalize them for national usage, the British Parliament made them stat utory to go into effect on the 1st of September, 1880. It is thus seen that the present international rules for preventing collision are due entirely to the action of the British Government, and before entering into a discussion of the actions of our own government, it is necessary to examine more closely the methods by which Great Britain arrived at the desired result. Every nation has a right to make such municipal laws as it sees fit; therefore the right of the British Government to force the use of certain lights on board its naval and merchant vessels is unquestionable. The British admiralty (corresponding to the United States Navy Department) issued the first instructions binding upon all British vessels, and upon reference to British authority it is found that previous to and for some time after 1842 the admiralty had a certain control over the merchant marine, which included matters of this general description. It will be noticed that the first revisory board was made up of naval officers and a Trinity House Brother. Referring again to authority we find that between 1842 and 1850 all pilot regulations were placed under the control of the Trinity House, and these light and steering rules were considered to come within the |