States inspecting officer there reported the maximum depth
of thirty feet and the required width and depths throughout the
channel. Thereupon all the remainder of the price agreed was paid over
to Eads, excepting a million dollars, which was kept, at interest, as a
guarantee, during twenty years' actual maintenance of the channel.
Omitting from the count every day of deficient channel, these twenty
years are now (1900) almost over; the results in the channel and in the
part of the gulf just beyond the Jetties have been precisely and
entirely what the projector of the works predicted when he began them.
The bar has never formed again. The Jetties themselves, so far from
having to be lengthened, are shorter than they were originally
designed. In a word, the sole legitimate objection that can be made to
them is that they do not furnish a great enough depth. Of course they
furnish the required depth, and as great a depth undoubtedly as can
possibly be had in the little South Pass. Ships, however, now draw more
water than they did twenty-five years ago, and a still deeper channel
is needed. The best proof of the success of the present one is that the
government is preparing to apply the same plan to the big South West
Pass, which Eads begged to open and was not allowed to. It is said that
in that pass he would have produced thirty feet in one year. But
nothing is more useless to discuss than what might have been. What Eads
has accomplished with his Jetties is certain.

One result of his achievement was a quick improvement in prices. Every
acre, mill, farmhouse in the whole of the Mississippi Valley was
increased in value by the impetus which the open river-mouth gave to
commerce. New Orleans rose from the eleventh to the second export city
in the country. Consequently there was a great increase in the number
of lines of ships going there, and in their tonnage. And as a result of
that there was a rapid increase in railway facilities. In twenty years
from the commencement of the Jetties there was a gain of one hundred
per cent. in the total commerce of New Orleans, nearly all of it due to
these works. This boom has, despite the marvelous multiplication of
railways, preserved the river traffic; and the river traffic, as
always, has by competition lowered freight rates. The effect has spread
to remote districts; and by this reduction in rates and prices there is
no doubt that the Jetties have made living cheaper on the Atlantic