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Show BOIS DE SIOUX RIVER LITIGATION 527 before they were constructed, but a speedier flow of the same amount of water would in an entire summer flood have but little effect on the height of the Lake, or the overflow in its outlet through the Bois de Sioux Valley. Mr. Meyer and Mr. Morgan, witnesses tor Minnesota, and both engineers of great experience in floods, say that a more rapid flow into a lake with an outlet will not raise the level of the lake as high as a slower inflow because the more rapid the inflow the greater the opportunity for outflow during the period of rising. An additional factor of the higher water on the banks of the Bois de Sioux in time of flood, as pointed out by Professor Bass, was in the railroad embankments and country roads crossing the whole slough- like 'basin of the Bois de Sioux. These with their limited outlets, he thought, served to dam the flooded river in its sluggish flow. He also called attention to the obstruction by the back water from the discharge of the Rabbit River which delivered itself with such force as to throw gravel and debris over to the opposite bank of the Bois de Sioux. Pro- fessor Bass relied on special measurements made for the purpose by a competent engineer, of the capacity of the Bend, the Twelve Mile Creek, and the old ditch and the new cut-off, as well as that of the straightened river between the cut-off and the Lake, the extent of the flooding half way down the river to the Lake near Wheaton and the basin of the Bois de Sioux. He testified that when the Lake was at the highest flood level, the added and more rapid flow due to the ditches did not increase this more than two inches and was negligible in creat- ing a flood in the Bois de Sioux. A marked difference between the evidence of the experts for the complainant and of those for the defendant was in respect to the effect they attributed to the rainfall in 1914,1915, and 1916. Those for North Dakota insisted that in neither 1915 nor 1916 was there the exceptional rainfall to produce the unusual flood in the Bois de Sioux Valley and that this was a significant fact in support of the view that the excep- tional overflow in that valley was due to the artificial cut-off and the straightening of the Mustinka River bed. This contention was met and completely overcome by the Government records and other evidence of the rainfall and the floods in 1915 and 1916 in the whole upper Red River Valley. The evidence satisfactorily establishes the fact to be that the flood in 1915 and that in 1916 exceeded any flood in that region for a succession of years since 1881. Great floods seem to have occurred about every ten years and to have been the result of excessive precipita- tion for three successive years. One was in 1881. Another of these was in the period of 1895, 1896 and 1897. Another was in the period of 1905, 1906 and 1907, and a third was in the period of 1914, 1915 and 1916. The last two were greater than the second. There was a runoff all over the upper Red River Valley in the year 1916 greater than in any period preceding since 1902. There were heavy rains in 1914, so that in October there was an accumulated excess of 3.54 inches. In 1915 the excess continued to grow until in October of that year there was an excess of 7.94 inches. Winter came on when the waters were at flood and froze them, so that the spring freshets of 1916 were very heavy and these were succeeded by heavy precipitation in June and July, so that by the fall of 1916 there was an excess of 16.15 inches. The flood was |