“The flood turned south from Chungmou, still keeping to the course of the Luchia, and stretched out in width for thirty miles. This vast body of water was from ten to twenty feet deep. Several miles south of Kaifeng the flood struck a large river which there joins the Luchia. The result was that the flood rose to a still greater height, and pouring into a low-lying and very fertile plain which was densely populated, submerged upward of one thousand five hundred villages. “Not far beyond this locality the flood passed into the province of Anhui, where it spread very widely. The actual loss of life could not be computed accurately, but the lowest intelligent estimate placed it at one million five hundred thousand, and one authority placed it at seven million.” The inundated provinces were under water four months. Two million survivors were left destitute. The mind quails at the appalling magnitude of such a catastrophe. Such is the warning given by the Yellow River. It is urged that if the Mississippi is heavily leveed, the same results will follow. The Po is another instance. The bed of the stream has been raised by dykes until it is higher in many places than the tops of the houses, and such disasters as have befallen the dwellers near the Yellow River of China, have only been avoided because of the fact that the Po is a comparatively diminutive stream. It is said that the same state of affairs exists on a smaller scale still on the Tiber. But the opponents of the outlet theory ascribe the China floods to ignorant engineering--a charge that can not be easily made to stick, when it is remembered that the Chinese have some of the most remarkable specimens of engineering skill in existence. In support of the outlet theory, a number of experienced river captains and pilots assert that the bed of the river has been slowly rising during the past thirty years; that levees are needed at points where none were years ago, while at the same time there is less water in the channel at those points than formerly. At the time of this writing Captain Condon is urging that an outlet be made through Lake Borgne, from a point ten miles below New Orleans. His company is to assume all costs, only asking that if successful, they shall be paid $500,000 for every foot of reduction of the high water level. He asserts that one-fourth of the flood waters can be readily drained off by this means. This Lake Borgne idea, commendable as it appears, has been agitated, more or less, for forty years, without being tried. A noted government engineer, Charles Ellet, urged it at the time of the flood of 1853, without avail.