The CHAIRMAN. I think if we once get beyond the matter of navigation, we will get outside and beyond the functions of the River and Harbor Committee.

Mr. HARDWICK. Why should not the same rule be applied with regard to the Mississippi River, then?

The CHAIRMAN. I will say that if we once get beyond the idea of conserving navigation and go to the extent of building levees, etc., solely for the purpose of protecting private property, then there will be no difference between your river-the Savannah-and the Mississippi River, except in the matter of degree. Of course, in the case of the Mississippi River, very much more property would perhaps be injured or destroyed.

Mr. HARDWICK. Not in proportion to the amount of money we ask for, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. It would be the same way in my State. We have a little river there that destroys in a few hours in time of flood many hundreds of thousands of dollars-or millions of dollars-worth of property; but I have had no thought of asking the Government to spend money to protect private property along there.

Mr. HARDWICK. I expect, Mr. Chairman, that if the proposition was the city of Tampa, and with a good navigable river controlled by the Government there, which was threatened by a destructive agency, you would probably think, just as the people along the Mississippi River think about work along their river, and just as I think about the Savannah River.

The CHAIRMAN. You do me an injustice there. I do not think the Government should appropriate money merely to protect private property on those rivers.

Mr. HARDWICK. Well, but is not the saving of human life in such cases any consideration to you?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; of course.

Mr. HARDWICK. Well, there is a good deal of human life involved in a city of 50,000 or 60,000 population. Do you mean that if you have a proposition in your district where hundreds or thousands of lives, as well as millions of dollars' worth of property, are involved, the Government ought not to appropriate money for their protection?

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I do not think it is necessary to carry this discussion further. I do not say that life ought not to be preserved or that property ought not to be protected; but that is not the function of this committee, whose duty it is to improve rivers and harbors for the purpose of aiding navigation, and not to go into the business, except perhaps incidentally, of saving life and property from floods.

Mr. HARDWICK. I do not know whether the chairman and I would agree in a thousand years upon that question; but I say to this committee that it has done that very thing in the case of the Mississippi River, and I believe it should do it in the case of the Savannah River; and I propose to try out that issue.

Mr. SWITZER. I live on the Ohio River, and we had a flood, for instance, last spring, which came up and everything was inundated and very great damage was done.

Mr. HARDWICK. Yes.

Mr. SWITZER. It inundated all of our towns and cities and much of the surrounding country; but I would not undertake to say on that account that Congress ought to appropriate money to levee the Ohio River. Still, with regard to the Mississippi River, I think that is an entirely different proposition.

Mr. HARDWICK. Why?

Mr. SWITZER. I think it would be an entire impossibility to confine the headwaters of the Ohio River with any system of levees that might be constructed in a thousand years.

Mr. HARDWICK. Then the reason you do not want Congress to do that is because you do not think it would do any good.

Mr. SWITZER. I mean with the amount of money which could reasonably be appropriated for that purpose.

Mr. HARDWICK. Well, you see that is not true in the case of the Savannah River, any more than it is in the case of the Mississippi River.

Mr. SWITZER. But the Mississippi River has 42 per cent of the drainage of the whole country which goes into it.

Mr. HARDWICK. And they have about 100 per cent of the appropriations. They have about 42 per cent of the drainage and 100 per cent of the appropriations along these lines.

Mr. KETTNER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to get Mr. Hardwick's views upon this question: You stated, Mr. Hardwick, that in the flood of 1908, it not only washed away the banks, but deposited them and the refuse and everything else in the bottom of the river. Mr. HARDWICK. Yes.

Mr. KETTNER. Is it your opinion that if the Government assists the city in keeping the waters of the Savannah River within its banks, that the water as it flows will scour out the river and thereby save the Government money that might otherwise have to be spent for dredging the channel below?

Mr. HARDWICK. Yes.

Mr. KETTNER. You really believe that by keeping the water within the banks, it will save part of that money which might have to be spent for dredging, and thus be an aid to navigation?

Mr. HARDWICK. Undoubtedly, just as much as it will anywhere along the Mississippi River.

Mr. KENNEDY. The Government report says:

These freshets develop a very high velocity of current, which attacks the banks of the stream, particularly on the Augusta side, and with every high freshet a loss of bank occurs. The material thus eroded is carried into the river, and furnishes the material with which the bars are made, which prevent or obstruct navigation at low water, and render the improvement of the river by regulation almost impossible.

Mr. HARDWICK. Exactly. That is Col. Kingman's report. Now, Col. Kingman stated it exactly in that way. He says, with reference to this, that the waters wash away the banks daily, and they destroy and impede navigation down there. Now, whatever our differences of opinion may be about Congress appropriating for the protection of life and property along the banks of a river by this levee protection, Congress has done that very thing in the case of the Mississippi River, and you can not differentiate the case of the Savannah River from that of the Mississippi in a single particular, except in the size of the Mississippi and the amount of commerce

that goes over it. You can not differentiate our case from theirs; if they are entitled to it we are entitled to it; and I do not care what grounds you put it on, or what the purpose is in making the appropriation.

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I want to introduce Mr. Nisbet Wingfield, the city engineer of Augusta, who will speak just for a moment upon the proposition.

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Wingfield, before you start I would like to make this statement: It is my idea that the report of the engineers, and these previous appropriations that have been made by Congress, have been made upon the theory that the improvement at Augusta was necessary in order to keep the river down below Augusta open to navigation. Now, I think that is unquestionably true that it is necessary for that purpose.

Mr. HARDWICK. Yes; Mr. Kennedy has just read that from the engineer's report. That is unquestionably true.

STATEMENT OF MR. NISBET WINGFIELD, CITY ENGINEER OF AUGUSTA, GA.

Mr. WINGFIELD. The only difference is that there is now an entirely different physical condition from that existing when the other appropriation was made. When this appropriation was given before for riprapping that bank, it was held by the engineers that if it went to a certain point the erosion would stop; and the reason for that supposition was that when the river came up it just flooded over the banks and through the town, and when the riprapping went to 25 feet-or if it had gone to 35 feet, as originally recommended; it was cut down by the engineers to 25 feet-it probably would have prevented the erosion. Then we had no levee; we had not got to a point where a levee had been agreed upon.

The only point where it would be feasible to locate such a levee is right on the bank. It is not like the case of the Mississippi River, where the levees are constructed some distance back, and wherever the levees are on the river bank, it is because the river has caved back to them. The only place in the case of the Savannah where a levee can be built is on the river bank; the levee is on the top of the bank, and is a part of it; it just goes straight on up from the bank.

Now, the water confined by that levee, or the current, is increased anywhere up to 18 or 20 feet; if the current is up to 25 feet the contour will remain as it is, but the part of the bank below will simply be eaten out.

As far as the feasibility of the thing is concerned, I have prepared a map showing the watershed of the Savannah River in detail, as compiled from the Government surveys, and they are perfectly accurate. And they show that the Savannah River has a watershed above Augusta of 7,295 square miles, and in all that area there is not a flat place. The river runs through hills, and the water is confined to the channel; and it comes down along those steep banks in a steady stream until it reaches Augusta, and when it reaches Augusta it just pours right over it.

I just want to give you an illustration of the course and behavior of the river; it is an interesting proposition. Here [indicating large

blue print] is the water of the Savannah River coming from Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, and every drop of water that goes into that river stays there until it gets to this point [indicating] and goes through the city of Augusta.

Mr. HARDWICK. You see, here is Augusta down here [indicating on blue print].

Mr. WINGFIELD. Now, from this point here [indicating on blue print] the high ground commences. Then there is a gap in there of 11 miles, where all that water flows through. Now, the proposition is to place a levee along the bank closing that gap of 11 miles. That is, on the Augusta bank.

Mr. KETTNER. Where do the hills along the bank stop?

Mr. WINGFIELD. Right here [indicating] above Augusta.

Mr. HARDWICK. The dotted line on the blue print shows where the gap is.

Mr. KETTNER. Is it your purpose to levee clear down to there [indicating]?

Mr. WINGFIELD. Yes; to levee the whole 11 miles.

Mr. HUGHES. The city is going to construct that levee?

Mr. WINGFIELD. Well, we have given $1,000,000; we have started on the high ground and are building it as far as we can with our $1,000,000.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the difference of elevation between the upper limit of that break or gap and the lower?

Mr. WINGFIELD. Do you mean where the hills start and stop?
The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. WINGFIELD. The elevation where we start is 173 feet above sea level, and where we stop it is about 127 feet above sea level.

The CHAIRMAN. What I am trying to get at is this: Is there not a point below there where you can safely stop the construction of the levee short of the lower limit of the gap?

Mr. WINGFIELD. No, sir; if you do that the water will come around and back into the city of Augusta.

The CHAIRMAN. And that is true, although you have a fall of over 50 feet?

Mr. WINGFIELD. We do not start the levee at that height. We start the levee at an elevation of 54 feet above the zero on our city gauge low water, and we start it at the lower end at 40 feet, making a fall of 14 feet.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think it necessary to levee the whole stretch?

Mr. WINGFIELD. We practically have to levee the whole stretch, otherwise the water will back into the city. There is a portion of the city where the properties of the larger interests are which is 22 or 23 feet below the level of the water during a flood stage, so that we will have to carry the levee far enough down the river to prevent it coming around and coming back. The only other way it could be done would be to put the city in a pocket, which would have caused bad drainage and be bad in other ways, and it would cost even more, because the cost of the levee is on the 3 miles of the city front. We do not intend to pave it in this place [indicating on blue print]; we intend to just throw up a dirt bank in a particular section, so that it will stay there. The high cost is going through the city of Augusta. I prepared this map to give an ocular demonstration of

the fact that this is not a local matter. The water comes there from four States, and, as I say, every drop of it is confined to the channel. until it gets to Augusta.

The CHAIRMAN. Where do these floods come from?

Mr. WINGFIELD. They have come from different portions of the water shed, from both sides of the river. That takes in Talulah Falls; it goes up into the North Carolina mountains. The flood of 1912 came from one side; the flood of 1908 came from the upper regions; and no flood we have any history of has come from the whole watershed. There was the anticipation in building this levee of 300,000 cubic feet per second, as the 1908 high figure. It would be 400,000 if the rainfall was over the entire watershed.

The CHAIRMAN. How much is the greatest flow you have had there? Mr. WINGFIELD. Three hundred thousand second-feet.

Mr. EDWARDS. What is going to be the effect, Mr. Wingfield, on your part of the river down there, of this work taking place at Talulah Falls, if any?

Mr. WINGFIELD. No effect; those dams and basins that are built above have no appreciable effect on the river, for the reason that when we have a flood those basins are already full.

Mr. EDWARDS. How about those power dams at Augusta; what restraining effect will they have?

Mr. WINGFIELD. None, for the same reason. We have discussed this proposition from every angle. It is one of such vital importance to the community that we have not missed any phase of it.

Mr. EDWARDS. It is of great importance to that whole section of Georgia and South Carolina, is it not?

Mr. WINGFIELD. It is. We figured at one time to see if we could not build power developments above there and in that way hold the water back. There is this trouble about power development and its lack of effect upon floods: That the reservoirs must be full of water all the time; and whenever they fail it is due to lack of water. Those reservoirs will be full when a flood comes, and the flood will go below them just the same. If you build them above there not merely for power development but for protecting the banks below, it will cost $6,000,000 or $7,000,000 to build dams above to keep the water back 24 hours from Augusta.

All of those things were considered when it was finally determined to build the levee; and every engineer says that the levee is the only practicable proposition.

Mr. BARCHFELD. Mr. Wingfield, would the construction of a reservoir or dam for $6,000,000 to $7,000,000 keep the flood from Augusta for 24 hours?

Mr. WINGFIELD. It would keep the water down to a level of about 35 feet, where there would be no special harm done or great loss suffered. But, anyhow, the cost is entirely out of reason. The levee will not cost more than $2,000,000 all told.

And there is another thing about that levee-and that is going back to this river transportation problem. There is no question but what, if we confine the river below, August will be kept in better shape for boats. That question has been passed on by the Government engineers; and it has also been my personal observation. I have been in this business 30 years, and think I am competent to speak. And every time we have high water there, I do not care whether it is