Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 6, 1880

No. 29.
Mr. Kasson to Mr. Evarts.

Legation of the United States,
Vienna, December 18, 1879. (Received January 6, 1880.)

No. 269.]

Sir: When Civil Engineer J. B. Eads, of the Mississippi River Commission, appointed under authority of Congress, was recently in Vienna, he desired the intervention of this legation to obtain certain information touching the river improvements of this empire.

In partial response to that request, I now transmit to the Department, by way of the United States consul at Hamburg, a package embracing certain printed documents in the German language, relating to this improvement, together with a map of the river Danube, showing the nature of the improvements, as I received them from the foreign office. Accompanying this dispatch is a translation of the note from the foreign office, which was brought to this legation with the documents. The address of the package is to the president of the Mississippi River Commission—wherever the office of the commission maybe—and is forwarded under cover to the Department of State.

I have, &c.,

JOHN A. KASSON.

[Inclosure in No. 269.]

The Foreign Office at Vienna to Mr. Kasson.

[Memorandum (received by Mr. Kasson December 15, 1879).—Translation.]

As is known to the honorable legation, Mr. James B. Eads, a civil engineer from Saint Louis, employed at the regulation of the Mississippi River, was ordered by the Government of the United States of America to study the water-works and river regulations in Austria-Hungary, especially to visit Theiss and Szegedin. In September last Mr. Eads was presented personally through the secretary of legation, Mr. John F. Delaplaine, and a letter of recommendation to the royal Hungarian minister, President de Tisza, was given him. At the same time the ministry of foreign affairs requested the imperial and royal ministry of commerce to give Mr. Eads such books, papers, and plans of water-works constructed in this part of the empire as would be of use to his high government. As we now hear that the civil engineer, Mr. Eads, has, after finishing his studies, returned to his country, the ministry of foreign affairs has the honor to transmit to the honorable legation the following papers, which it has just itself received, with the request to send them to Mr. Eads, viz:

(1.) A map of the river Danube, from Stein to Theben, in Lower Austria, showing the water-works constructed up to the end of 1878.

(2.) Report and motions of the committee appointed in 1868 by the commission for the regulation of the Danube.

(3.) “The Regulation of the Danube near Vienna,” published May 30, 1875, at the time of the solemn opening of the navigation in the new river-bed.

(4.) “The Regulation of the Danube near Vienna,” a Lecture delivered the 18th March, 1876, before the Society of Austrian Architects and Engineers, by the Chevalier Gustav von Wex.

(5.) “Collection of Reflections on the running, blocking, and breaking up of the ice in the river Danube and in the Danube Canal at Vienna in the months of January and February, 1876,” by Baron Wm. von Engerth.

Vienna, December 13, 1879.