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Book The Control of Nature

    Book Details:
  • Author : John McPhee
  • Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  • Release : 2011-04-01
  • ISBN : 0374708495
  • Pages : 272 pages

Download or read book The Control of Nature written by John McPhee and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While John McPhee was working on his previous book, Rising from the Plains, he happened to walk by the engineering building at the University of Wyoming, where words etched in limestone said: "Strive on--the control of Nature is won, not given." In the morning sunlight, that central phrase--"the control of nature"--seemed to sparkle with unintended ambiguity. Bilateral, symmetrical, it could with equal speed travel in opposite directions. For some years, he had been planning a book about places in the world where people have been engaged in all-out battles with nature, about (in the words of the book itself) "any struggle against natural forces--heroic or venal, rash or well advised--when human beings conscript themselves to fight against the earth, to take what is not given, to rout the destroying enemy, to surround the base of Mt. Olympus demanding and expecting the surrender of the gods." His interest had first been sparked when he went into the Atchafalaya--the largest river swamp in North America--and had learned that virtually all of its waters were metered and rationed by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' project called Old River Control. In the natural cycles of the Mississippi's deltaic plain, the time had come for the Mississippi to change course, to shift its mouth more than a hundred miles and go down the Atchafalaya, one of its distributary branches. The United States could not afford that--for New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and all the industries that lie between would be cut off from river commerce with the rest of the nation. At a place called Old River, the Corps therefore had built a great fortress--part dam, part valve--to restrain the flow of the Atchafalaya and compel the Mississippi to stay where it is. In Iceland, in 1973, an island split open without warning and huge volumes of lava began moving in the direction of a harbor scarcely half a mile away. It was not only Iceland's premier fishing port (accounting for a large percentage of Iceland's export economy) but it was also the only harbor along the nation's southern coast. As the lava threatened to fill the harbor and wipe it out, a physicist named Thorbjorn Sigurgeirsson suggested a way to fight against the flowing red rock--initiating an all-out endeavor unique in human history. On the big island of Hawaii, one of the world's two must eruptive hot spots, people are not unmindful of the Icelandic example. McPhee went to Hawaii to talk with them and to walk beside the edges of a molten lake and incandescent rivers. Some of the more expensive real estate in Los Angeles is up against mountains that are rising and disintegrating as rapidly as any in the world. After a complex coincidence of natural events, boulders will flow out of these mountains like fish eggs, mixed with mud, sand, and smaller rocks in a cascading mass known as debris flow. Plucking up trees and cars, bursting through doors and windows, filling up houses to their eaves, debris flows threaten the lives of people living in and near Los Angeles' famous canyons. At extraordinary expense the city has built a hundred and fifty stadium-like basins in a daring effort to catch the debris. Taking us deep into these contested territories, McPhee details the strategies and tactics through which people attempt to control nature. Most striking in his vivid depiction of the main contestants: nature in complex and awesome guises, and those who would attempt to wrest control from her--stubborn, often ingenious, and always arresting characters.

Book Water Resources Development in Louisiana

Download or read book Water Resources Development in Louisiana written by and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Flood Control  The Mississippi River and its tributaries  Hearings Nov  7 to 22  Nov  28 to Dec  19  1927  Jan  5 17  Jan  18 to 26  Jan  27 Feb  1  1928

Download or read book Flood Control The Mississippi River and its tributaries Hearings Nov 7 to 22 Nov 28 to Dec 19 1927 Jan 5 17 Jan 18 to 26 Jan 27 Feb 1 1928 written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Flood Control and published by . This book was released on 1928 with total page 1406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Omnibus River and Harbor and Flood Control Act  1970

Download or read book Omnibus River and Harbor and Flood Control Act 1970 written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Public Works. Subcommittee on Rivers and Harbors and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 2110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Flood control projects

    Book Details:
  • Author : United States. Congress. House. Committee on Public Works. Subcommittee on Rivers and Harbors
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 1954
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 1168 pages

Download or read book Flood control projects written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Public Works. Subcommittee on Rivers and Harbors and published by . This book was released on 1954 with total page 1168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Flood Control

    Book Details:
  • Author : United States. Congress. House. Committee on Flood Control
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 1928
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 1372 pages

Download or read book Flood Control written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Flood Control and published by . This book was released on 1928 with total page 1372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Flood Control Omnibus Bill  title II H R  9859

Download or read book Flood Control Omnibus Bill title II H R 9859 written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Public Works and published by . This book was released on 1954 with total page 1254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Mississippi River and Tributaries Project

Download or read book Mississippi River and Tributaries Project written by United States. Mississippi River Commission and published by . This book was released on 1964 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Mississippi River and Tributaries Project

Download or read book Mississippi River and Tributaries Project written by United States. Army. Corps of Engineers and published by . This book was released on 1964 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Omnibus Water Resources Authorizations   1972  Hearings Before Teh Subcommittee on Flood Control   Rivers and Harbors      92 1  June 15  20  21  22  23  27  and 28  1972

Download or read book Omnibus Water Resources Authorizations 1972 Hearings Before Teh Subcommittee on Flood Control Rivers and Harbors 92 1 June 15 20 21 22 23 27 and 28 1972 written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Public Works and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 1170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers on Civil Works Activities

Download or read book Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers on Civil Works Activities written by United States. Army. Corps of Engineers. Civil Works Directorate and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 1480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Hearings

    Book Details:
  • Author : United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Appropriations
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 1963
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 1732 pages

Download or read book Hearings written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Appropriations and published by . This book was released on 1963 with total page 1732 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Public Works Appropriations  1964

    Book Details:
  • Author : United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Appropriations
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 1963
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 1794 pages

Download or read book Public Works Appropriations 1964 written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Appropriations and published by . This book was released on 1963 with total page 1794 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Flood Control on the Mississippi River

Download or read book Flood Control on the Mississippi River written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Flood Control and published by . This book was released on 1931 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Annual Report FY     of the Secretary of the Army on Civil Works Activities

Download or read book Annual Report FY of the Secretary of the Army on Civil Works Activities written by United States. Army. Corps of Engineers and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 1660 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Annual Report FY     of the Chief of Engineers on Civil Works Activities

Download or read book Annual Report FY of the Chief of Engineers on Civil Works Activities written by United States. Army. Corps of Engineers and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 1316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: