FLOODS.
In this country and in England the ravages of high waters have become a matter of much seriousness and alarm. Nor have we failed to observe that in recent years the floods have been far greater and more numerous than they were a generation ago. This is due, we are told, to the clearing away of the forests, allowing the water to rush, unhindered by the undergrowth and fallen leafage, into the rivers, thus causing their sudden swell and overflow.
The serious and practical question is how to avert, in some degree at least, the frequent wholesale destruction of life and property, as has been experienced in the exposed districts during the last few years. It is mere nonsense to talk as some have done of condemning the flooded districts as dangerous and unfit for human habitation. Any one acquainted with the human family knows how little it is restrained by the motives of fear or danger in choosing its dwelling-place. Men will build their houses where the ashes of muttering volcanoes fall on their roofs, and with the knowledge that underneath their foundations lie their predecessors buried by former eruptions. How absurd, then, to talk of abandoning as places of human dwelling those great valleys, the most fertile, and in many other ways the most highly favored on the continent. For fertility of soil and beauty of situation, the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi may safely challenge the world.
Neither will it do to say that by heeding the warnings given by the Signal Service Department much of these calamities can be averted. The Service published its warnings to the people of the Ohio valley a week in advance of the recent floods, but no attention was paid to them. And though the time is coming when the statements of meteorological science will command general confidence, still it will not suffice to avert the great loss of life and property. Men are not easily warned, and besides there is the impossibility in many cases, of providing against danger and loss, even though warning has been received.
Since it is now too late in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys for the method at present being discussed, with reference to the waters of the Hudson, viz.: To spare the Adirondacks, there is nothing left but to refer this important subject to the State and National Committees on “Levees and other Improvements against Destructive Floods.” Nor do we have to look long for encouraging examples of this mode of prevention. A large part of Louisiana is habitable and cultivable only through the protection afforded by hundreds of miles of levees. For six centuries Holland has shown to the world what can be done by this method of protection. Her whole North sea coast and a hundred miles of the Zuyder Zee is provided with dikes, her constant safeguard from inundation. Before the dikes were built in the thirteenth century, a single flood destroyed 80,000 lives. At an annual expense of $2,000,000, those rich lands yielding their luxuriant pastures and crops of hemp and flax, are defended from the waters.
We are persuaded that this is the only solution of the flood problem in this country. Whether partial or entire, it should be attempted without delay. In the light of recent experience government can not begin its work too soon. The vast amount of property swept away during the last decade would have gone no little way in defraying the expense of dikes as solid and sufficient as those of Holland. Add the amount given by Congress for the relief of the suffering districts, together with the amount given in benevolence and sympathy for the same purpose, and the sum is much increased. By procrastination we may expend in the above painful manner treasure equal to the whole cost of the needed protection before the work is begun. Let us hope that the year will not pass without decisive action by the government.
EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK.
A party is reported in Ohio claiming to organize C. L. S. C. local circles, taking collections, etc. Now be it known that no agents for such purposes are appointed by the Chautauqua authorities. Such self-appointed agents are likely to be swindlers. Our workers render their services voluntarily. We appoint no agents.