o enlist the aid of
philanthropic journalists and to lay before the members of the national
legislature a statement of facts for their guidance, I issue this
circular, with the hope that the great and increasing distress and danger
in which the inhabitants of the overflowed regions now are may thus be
made more widely known and the situation better understood.

The Mississippi River in average high water from Memphis to the Gulf is
confined by artificial banks or levees to a channel, varying from half a
mile to a mile in width. But for these embankments the unparalleled flood
of this year would have formed, for all this distance, a continuous lake,
covering the whole alluvial country, from twenty-five miles to one hundred
and seventy-five miles in width, and more than six hundred miles long. But
in spite of these levees, considerably more than one-half of this area has
been submerged. The levees could not withstand the Mississippi in its
mighty and ruthless violence, and they gave way in numerous crevasses,
varying from one hundred to five thousand feet in width, aggregating fully
six miles. Through these great chasms the flood has been pouring since the
15th April, in a stream seven feet in average depth and at the rate of
more than seven miles an hour. More water is even now flowing from the
great river over the farms and plantations of Arkansas, Mississippi and
Louisiana, than falls over Niagara. This outflow must continue until the
river recedes below its natural banks, an indefinite period. In some years
high water has lasted a long time. In 1858 the river remained at its
maximum 87 days and in 1859 at Vicksburg, 129 days. The flood of 1874, is
higher than either, or than any on record.

The vast area of the overflow is estimated as follows by Wm. J. McCulloh,
Esq.: formerly and for many years United States Surveyor General for
Louisiana, a practical engineer and especially familiar with the inundated
districts.

"I estimate the area submerged by crevasses, and overflow by high and back
water, to be in _Louisiana_ about 8,065,000 acres, or 12,600 square miles.
It is impossible, in many places, to define the line of separation between
the crevasse and overflow water--the former soon reaching the flat land
mingles with the latter.

"This overflow extents over all, or nearly all of each of the following
parishes: Carroll, Madison, Tensas, Concordia, Avoyelles, Point Coupee,
West Baton Rouge, Iberville, St. Martin,