MEbIPiiIS is a city of about 40,000 inhabitants, situated on the east bank of the Mississippi River, about midwav between St. Louis and New Orleans. Its area, including its immediate occupied submbs, is about four square miles. Of this about one square mile is the more strictly urban, being quite closely built over.-a considerable portion in compact blocks, and the remainder with semi-detached houses.Many streets of this par of the town were cuvered ten or twelve years abo with wood pavement, which, during the past four or five years, has fallen into very bad repair, and most of which is now being removed, its place being supplied by stone blo.;k pavement or macadam.The accompanying map (Plate A) shows the conformation of the surface. The valley, beginning a little nor th of the northernmost portion of the main sewer, and occupied towards the south by the two branches .of the main, is the lowest part of a gradual depression falling from the east and from the west. Through the bottom of this runs a deep cut called Bayou Gayoso. This bayou is the eroded channel of a stream ordinarily small, but, under occasional sudden showers, subject to an enormous increase of volume. Its sides are steep and irregular, and its depth is quite uniformly from 12 to 15 feet below the general level of its banks.The Mississippi River has an extreme variation of level of about 35 feet. At least once during the year, and often two or three times, it fluctuates to the extent of from 20 to 25 feet. Extreme high water is reached, or nearly approached, almost yearly, but it is seldom that the subsidence goes to within several feet of extreme low water mark.At the highest stage of the Mississippi dead water sets back in the bayou for the distance of about one mile, or to Gayoso Street. From Market Street to the mou.th of the bayou the left bank is quite flat for -some distance back, so that at high water wide areas are overfiowed, .and in this part of the town many houses are built on piles. In places only the streets (airtificially raised) are above the level of the flood.The city was founded less than fifty years ago, and its growth (due to a most advantageous position in the heart of one of tlie best cottongrowing regions of the country, and on the great highway ot' western commerce), has been constantly interrupted by epidemics of various diseases, some of which have been so violent as to threaten the depopulation of the town. In 1878 there were over 5,0(11) deaths from yellow fever between August 14 and November 3, and un one single day the small heroic remainder of the Volunteer Relief Committee had 300 unburied bodies on their hands. Hope and heart seemed to have fled. When this epidemic was followed by another equally threatening in 1879, and when the voluntary and enforced exodus speedily reduced the population to one-third its normal ai.r~ount it was seriously proposed, as the only means for protecting the whole
