ABSTRACT

POTTER 24.01. 1864 Lisbon Falls ME/USA 06.08. 1928 St. Louis MO/USA The career of General Charles Lewis Potter on the Mississippi River began in 1899 then as a young lieutenant, when he reported to Memphis from duty in the Philippines to take the charge of the Third Mississippi River Commission District. His work on river improvement and flood control from the mouth of the White River to Vicksburg MS added much to the District. From 1903 to 1910 he was on another work, returning to the river work then, taking charge of the St. Louis District. He served also as secretary of the Mississippi River Commission with charge of the dredging operations and engineering of the river upstream of Cairo. In 1912 he was transferred to St. Paul MN. In 1920 he returned to St Louis as president of the Commission, an office he held until 1928. In 1922 and 1927 two great floods occurred on Mississippi River. The first came before the levees on the main river had been raised to grades established by the Commission, so that it was difficult to establish the levee quality adopted. As the 1927 flood reached heights indicating that the Commission’s grades would have to be raised to record heights if the policy adopted was continued. Following this flood a revised plan for flood control based on the experience was considered. It abandoned the levee-only principle and adopted floodways and spillways as auxiliaries to levees. In 1928, Potter was retired and Thomas H. Jackson (1874-1937) took over his duties. The 1925 paper on the Mississippi River gives an impressive account on the works made from World War I, describing the methods adopted for the control of the then longest, fully-regulated river of the world. The differences between the control systems for the three distinct river sections are described. The paper is illustrated with excellent photographs showing wing dams, mattress laying and pile dikes, and typical levee sections. Anonymous (1928). Retirement ends long service on the Mississippi River. Engineering News-Record 100(26): 1019-1021. P Anonymous (1928). General Potter, Head of Mississippi work, dies. ENR 101(6): 223. P Potter, C.L. (1925). How the Mississippi River is regulated. Engineering News-Record 94(13): 508-514; 94(14): 556-559. Potter, C.L. (1927). Gen. Jadwin reports on flood protection system for Mississippi River. Engineering News-Record 99(24): 961-966. Potter, C.L. (1928). Glossary of Mississippi River terms. Congressional Digest 7(2): 50-60. hhttps://www.mvd.usace.army.mil/About/MississippiRiverCommission(MRC)/PastMRCPresidents.aspx P

POWELL J.W. 24.03. 1834 Mount Morris NY/USA 23.09. 1902 Haven ME/USA John Wesley Powell studied at Illinois College, but took no degree. He joined the State Natural History Society in 1854 and was eventually elected secretary of its Illinois section. In parallel he made long boat trips on the Mississippi River and Ohio River. After service in the Civil War, during which he lost the right arm, Powell was then appointed professor of geology at Illinois Wesleyan College, Bloomington. Both in 1867 and 1868, he organized and conducted parties of students and naturalists across the plains to the Colorado mountains. He first saw the gorges of the Colorado River in 1868. In 1869 a party of eleven men and four boats crossed 1,500 km of the Grand Canyon within three months. Powell continued his western explorations during the following years, from 1875 as the division director of the US Geological Survey. In 1880 he took over as director the Survey, and held the office with success until 1894. The results of the trips to the Colorado River were published in his 1875 report, and expanded twenty years later. In this report he made his bold appeal for immortality as a geologist by calling attention to the fact that these canyons were gorges of erosion and due to the action of rivers upon the rock which were undergoing gradual elevation. With this report, his geological work ceased. In 1883, Powell inaugurated the series of Bulletins which have continued until today. In 1890, he also started with the Monographs of the US Geological Survey, a way of publication later adopted by similar institutions. Powell was also interested in the native tribes with which he had come into contact during his voyages, and in 1877 inaugurated the publications series Contributions to North American ethnology. Anonymous (1902). J. Wesley Powell. The Engineering and Mining Journal 74(13): 403-404. P Anonymous (1935). Powell, John Wesley. Dictionary of American biography 15: 146-148. Scribner’s: New York. Newell, F.H. (1930). 40 years of research into water resources. Engineering News-Record 104(4): 132-136. P Powell, J.W. (1875). Explorations of the Colorado River of the west and its tributaries. US Government Printing Office: Washington DC. Powell, J.W. (1895). Canyons of the Colorado. Flood & Vincent: New York. Stegner, W. (1954). Beyond the hundredth meridian: John Wesley Powell and the second opening of the west. Penguin: New York. P https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley_Powell P