The Nevada journal., 1857-01-16

| Like the deo that's due to earth.
SINGULAR THEORY OF THE MIssIssIP-
PI RIvER.-The Mississippi river is the
greatest stream in the world Its total
length is 1000 miles. On looking over
a volume recently issued, entitled 'Loid' s
Steamboat and Railroad Directory we
find the following instructive article on
the waste of the waters of the Missis-
sippi. 1t says:
No experience will enable a person to
anticipate, with any degree of certainty
the elevation of the flood in any given
year. In some seasons the waters
do not rise above their channels in 9TH
ers, the entire lower valley of the Mis-
sissippi is submerged. Embankments
called levees have been raised from five
to ten feet high, on both sides of the
stream, extending many miles above
and below New Orleans. By this
means the river is restrained within its
proper limits, except at the greatest
freshets, when the waters sometimes
break over everything, causing great
destruction to property, and sometimes
loss of life. The average height of the
flood from the Delta to the junction of
the Missouri is above sixteen feet. At
the mouth of the latter river is twenty
five feet Below the entrance of the
Ohio river the riseis often fifty five feet.
At Natchez it seldom exceeds thirty
feet; and at New Orleans about twelve
feet. What goes with the waterl 1t is
known that the difference between high
and low watermark, as high up as White
river. is about thirty-six feet and the
current at high water mark runs near
seven miles per hour, and opposite to
New Orleans the difference between high
and low water mark is only twelve feet,
and the current little over three miles to
the hour. The width and depth of the
river being the same, from which we
calculate that nearly six times as much
water passes the mouth of white river
as by New Orleans. What goes with
the excess The only solution ever of
fered, is that it escapes by the bayous
Plauquemine, Lafourche and iberville,
but when we calculate the width, depth
and current Of these bayous. they fall
vastly short of affording sufficient es-
capement. The true explanation can,
we think, be given.
ALLOW water, throughout the whole
extent, we see land structure exposed,
underlying the bank, or that the alluvial
structure on which the plantations are,
is a structure of deposit, made by the
river above its low water mark, which
opposite to the mouth Of White river, is
thirty feet thick. AS you descend, the
river diminishes in volume as the differ
ence between high and low water mark
diminishes and nearly corresponds to it,
and wherever the bottom is exposed it
shows throughout the whole extent that
the bottom is pure coarse sand exhibit
ing at many places the ocean shingle,
through the superimposed alluyial struc-
ture mixed with fine sand. The water
percolates with such facility and rapid
ity that the water in a well dug at a
considerable distance from the river
bank rises and falls with the rise and
fall of the river, not varying an inch, and
through lhe coarse sand and shingles of
the bottom, it passes as rapidly as if go
ing through common seive.
BY the accurate surveys of several
scientific engineers, it is ascertained that
the fall of the Mississippi river is four
inches to the mile. The distance from
Natchez to New Orleans of three hun
dred miles will give twelve hundred
inches, or one hundred feet The depth
of the river is less than fifty feet at high
water mark. The river debouches into
the ocean from promonitory made by
itself. The surface of the ocean, by
measurement, below the bottom of the
river, above New Orleans, corresponds
with the low water mark below New
Orleans, therefore the Mississippi river
is pouring through its own bottom into
the ocean, the superimposed weight Civ
ing lateral pressure to hurry the subter-
rancan current. If the reader has ever
stood upon a Mississippi sand bar in a
hard rain, or seen water poured from a
bucket on the sand bar, he has seen that
neither can be done in sufficient quantity
to produce any current or accumulation
on the surface The river is, therefore,
from the time it comes below the lime
stone stratas of Missouri and Kentucky,
wasting itself through its own bottom.
If the Mississippi river had to pursue
its course, like the Ohio, over rocky
strata, walled in by rock and impervious
clay banks, the high water mark in New
Orleans would reach one hundred feet
above its present limits; but running
over coarse sand, walled in by deposit
5 made of sand, ancient deluvial detritus
and vegetable mound, no more water
reaches the ocean. than the excess ovel