n 1852 another
appropriation was made; and a board, appointed by the War Department,
recommended,--

1. Stirring up the bottom.

2. Dredging.

3. If both these methods failed, the construction of parallel
jetties "five miles in length, at the mouth of the South West Pass,
to be extended into the gulf annually, as experience should show to
be necessary."

4. "Should it then be needed, the lateral outlets should be
closed."

5. Should all these fail, a ship canal might be made.

Dredging by stirring the bottom was tried, and produced a depth of
eighteen feet. Three years later this depth had entirely disappeared.
In 1856 an appropriation was entered into, but the jetties were never
completed. Later than that dredging was tried again. Up to 1875 more
than eighteen feet of depth had never been obtained, and even that
could not be steadily preserved. Channels, opened in low water, were
quickly filled up with sediment in high water, and sometimes a severe
storm would wash in enough sand from the gulf to undo the result of
months of dredging.

As early as 1832 a ship canal near Fort Saint Philip, which should cut
through the river bank out to the gulf, had been planned, and this
solution had been approved of by the Louisiana legislature. That idea
had been revived from time to time. And there had also more than once
been new recommendations made for jetties, which by narrowing the
channel should deepen it. Finally Congress ordered surveys and plans
for the canal, and then appointed a board not only to report on them,
but also to ascertain the feasibility of improving the channel of one
of the natural outlets of the river. In 1874 this board reported in
favor of the canal, and against the idea of jetties, which, in its
opinion, could hardly be built, could not be maintained, and would be
excessively costly.

This, then, was the situation when Eads appeared on the scene:
"scratching and scraping" were going on in South West Pass, but were
doing little real and no lasting good; the government engineers had
declared themselves in favor of a canal; and though in some quarters
jetties had been advocated, scarcely any one thought they could be
built, or that if they were they would last, or that they would do any
good. Eads, however, understood the river like a book, and he had
studied this particular subject. He now came forward publicly, offering
not only to build and to maintain jett