Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1851-06-21
BuRLrsGros, (IowA.) Jusx S

"A,
DESCRIPTION FLooD-No one who has ever visit
ed the Western country have conception of the
real appearance assumed by the present astonishing rise
waters The statement that the Of the Upper Msss
spp have reached point six feet than
BY the present residents carries with it the idea that such
rise must greatly increase the velocity of the current and
whem every thing in its onward Such an idea pre-
sens an amazingly inadequate impression Of the facts
Up and down this mighty stream there extensive bot
toms either side. stretching from ten miles to high
bluffs whose submits the table prairie land commences
These bottoms except Of the lowest form the banks of
the river in its ordinary sages The soil Of these bottoms
auvon Of the richest kind and holds strong inducements
for farmers to cultivate such land Many valuable farms
in consequence opened these rich bottoms. Generally
the bluffs boldly the river and form its only shore
side, while the other the bottom land
miles into the interior Those who travel up and down the
river are, at the proper struck with the beauty and
uxuance of the vegetation, where the farms hidden
as is frequently the by thick growth Of timber the
river margin of the bottom.
With this brief description the reader who has
the Mississippi will be prepared to comprehend the
and dreaduness of the present calamity when he is told that
these bottoms, with their beautiful FARMS covered
with water to the depth Of from eight feet As rise
after rise comes down from the upper country the water
spreads itself these bottoms its only barrier being the
high and beetling bluffs which many places it has already
reached This to wise ordination Of Providence In
consequence of vent being given the food from above by
permitting it to spread these bottoms in this way the
strength OF the current in the river proper is very
rally increased The waters might otherwise rush mady
down with terrific velocity, and being confined to narrow
limits, do greater damsge far than by the present order of
things.
The reader can form but feeble conception Of the immense
amount of water that take this loDgtu
dinal Assuming that all the rivers, with the excep
ton Of the Ohio, high the Mississippi, there is
at this moment 10 the valley Of the Mississippi and lis trbh
ares mpomptu OF fresh water FIVE thousand miles
long averaging Eve miles in width and fifteen feet In depth
The principal mitigation that exhibits itself amidst all this
distress and destruction is that has upon gra-
duay as to enabs the greatest sufferers to their lives
The work Of years has been swept away Hundreds have
been driven from their homes and for the present house,
less and obliged to take up their abodes with strangers But
their lives spared and by sharing in the sympshiss and
benevoience OF those who have not been stripped Of their all
they have been, there yet cause for gratitude to that
Being who causeh the waters fow for wise purpose
(Ha,ok-Eye.
IA letter TO the Editors from Burlington says Five years
will not place the country in this vicinity in good situation
as it was before and thousands totally ruined"l