As to the Best and Cheapest Mode of Communication Between the Coal Mines of the Mount Carbon Coal Company In Jackson County, Illinois, and the Mississippi River (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from As to the Best and Cheapest Mode of Communication Between the Coal Mines of the Mount Carbon Coal Company: In Jackson County, Illinois, and the Mississippi River
Sir: In compliance with your instructions of 23d April last, I report the results of my surveys and estimates as to the best and cheapest mode of getting the Mount Carbon Company's coal from their mines on Big Muddy river, to the Mississippi river.
Obviously, either the Big Muddy river must be improved in such manner as to secure a safe and constant navigation, or a railway must be constructed. The first point to be decided is, which of these plans shall be adopted; and in determining that point, we must examine as to which plan will afford us the safest, most regular, and cheapest conveyance.
The principal obstructions to the navigation of the Big Muddy river are, a sandstone bar about miles below the mine, a similar bar about 5 miles lower down, and an extensive mud bar, varying constantly in its length and the depth of water over it, at and for a considerable distance above the mouth of the river. The two obstructions first named, could only be overcome by the construction of a dam of such elevation as to secure the requisite minimum depth over them. The last, the mud bar, would be unmanageable; it could neither be removed nor confined. It is formed by deposit from the Mississippi when that river is high, and Muddy river is low; is shifted and partially removed when the Mississippi falls and Muddy river rises, and is formed again by the next freshet of the Mississippi. It would be necessary then to avoid it by cutting a canal from the dam mentioned above, through the bottom land which intervenes between the Big Muddy and the Mississippi, to the most convenient good landing place on the latter stream.
The "navigation" then would consist of the dam with its pool of slack water, the guard lock at the head of the canal, the canal about three miles in length, with its outlet locks into the Mississippi river.
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