In the Galveston case, the same year, he was requested, not only by the city but by the state legislature, to formulate a plan and to take a contract from the United States government for improving that harbor. The government had already been carrying on works there for several years and accomplishing nothing. Indeed, it was the jetty method--by this time more highly thought of than ten years before--which was being attempted, but not in proper form. Eads, after long and careful study of the situation, made a plan, which he offered to carry out on conditions very similar to those adopted in the case of the Mississippi Jetties, but Congress was not willing to grant the contract. Since then, however, the works there have been altered according to his suggestions, and have consequently been more successful. For a good many years, owing to the weakness of his lungs and to other illness, Eads had not only had to travel much for his health, but to take special care of himself generally; and yet, to judge from the following account, in the first person, of how he had spent the year 1880, it seems that his wondrous energy had not failed: "I inspected the River Danube about 800 miles of its course; and investigated the cause and extent of the frightful inundation at Szegedin, in Hungary, which involved an examination of 150 miles of the Theiss River. I also examined the Suez Canal, to familiarize myself more thoroughly with the question of a ship canal across the American isthmus, having previously visited the Amsterdam ship canal and the one at the mouth of the River Rhone. As a member of the Mississippi River Commission I also aided in perfecting the plans for the improvement of that river, and the preparation of its report now under consideration before Congress. As consulting engineer of the State of California I made a thorough inspection of the Sacramento River, to consider the best method of repairing the injury to its navigation caused by the hydraulic mining operations there, and submitted a lengthy report upon it. On my way back I visited the wonders of the Yellowstone Park, crossing the Rocky Mountains in that excursion six different times. Within this time I have thrice visited the Jetties at the mouth of the Mississippi, besides my visit to the city of Mexico, Tehuantepec, and Yucatan.... I have also, at the request of the mayor and council of Vicksburg, twice visited that city during the last year, to examine its harbor with a view to its improvement."