A breach in a levee.
1819. Edinburgh Review, xxxii. 240, with reference to the Mississippi River. (N.E.D.)
1829. These crevasses cut their way through the banks with so much ease, and from such small beginnings, that hardly any degree of vigilance affords perfect security. Water-rats infest these banks, and it is said that many crevasses have been caused by their holes.—Basil Hall, ‘Travels in North America,’ iii. 347.
1835. There have been instances where “crevasses” as they are termed here, have been gradually worn through the levée, by the attrition of the waters.—Ingraham, ‘The South-West,’ i. 79.
1837. A crevasse may be made even by a reptile which will let in the waters of the Mississippi till whole counties are inundated.—Speech of S. S. Prentiss, Shields, ‘Life of Prentiss,’ p. 113.
1850. A moral crevasse has occurred; fanaticism and ignorance,—political rivalry,—sectional hate,—strife for sectional dominion, have accumulated into a mighty flood, and pour their turgid waters through the broken constitution.—Mr. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, U.S. Senate, Feb. 13: Cong. Globe, p. 149, App.
1859. You descend in the “lead” or “crevasse,” until pay-dirt is reached.—Rocky Mountain News, Cherry Creek, Kansas Territory, June 18.
1861. When the bank gives way, or a “crevasse,” as it is technically called, occurs, the damage done to the plantations is sometimes to be calculated by millions of dollars.—W. H. Russell, ‘My Diary, North and South,’ May 31.
1865. We’ve only been out of the water about an hour; the flood is running off, and this is a North Carolina crevasse.—G. W. Nichols, ‘The Story of the Great March,’ p. 229.
1888. The excitement and rush of all the household to the crevasse, the hasty gathering in of the field-hands, and the homely devices for stopping the break until more substantial materials could be gathered.—Mrs. Custer, ‘Tenting on the Plains,’ pp. 55–6.
