Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1867-08-31
MISCELLANEOUS
The City Of Memphis i'm Peril.


THE sUBTERRANEAN FLOW OF THE MIssIssIp-
Pr.
A correspondent of the Nashville Union
and Dispatch having suggested that Mem
phis was liable at any moment to "fall in"
to watery abyss beneath it, caused by the
subterranean flow of the Mississippi, the
Memphis Bulletin adds the following:
THE river shore in the navy yard has
rapidly disappeared. There steamers rarely
land. In front of the city proper there are
always from ten to twenty steamers. BY
these the earth, at the waters edge, is pro-
tected and the force of the surface current
is broken. Hence it happens that the earth
at the waters edge, and for ten or twenty
feet below, remains unbroken. The great
body of the mighty tide of waters, forty and
fifty feet below, rushes onward in its unre
sisted course, rending away the earth. How
far the stream passes beneath the city there
is, of course no means o: ascertaining. The
explosion of torpedoes, forty or fifty feet
below the rivers surface, shook every
building west of the bayou. Beyond the
bayou the shock was unheeded, unfelt.
MANY years ago saw mill was ut work
in the swamps of Arkansas, twenty miles
from the Mississippi. The owner awoke
one bright morning to find his we'll dry, in
which the day before there was water three
or four feet deep. He cut trench to a
broad long surface pond, not far away, and
was again supplied with all abundance of
water. This trench connected the pond
and well. Three days elapsed, and pond
and well both were empty. The old man
of the mill was amazed. The story was
told to traveller from Memphis. 1T is
plain enough he said, the river is lower
than for years past, and your well and pond
have emptied themselves into the great
sewer of the continent The Mississippi
not only overhows but underfows all the
! broad valley through which it passes. Its
channel, however broad and deep, could rot
contain all the rains that fall and streams
/ that come down from the mountains, terri
tories and states of America. At Fort Pill
| low and Randolph every evidence of war
has disappeared, swallowed up by the great
river. Earthworks at Randolph, built in
1861, three hundred yards from the shore
have gone to the Baize. AT both these
places the river current, as here at Memphis
strike the shore at almost right angles. A
city paper tells US how a planter, within
the week, deposited five thousand dollars
worth of supplies upon the river bank somt
where in Arkansas. He had not gone hall
a mile when the country behlno HIM dlsap
peared with all his stores.
"Reelfoot Lake is fathomless. 1t is moi
far from the river. The night before the
earthquake of 1912 lofty trees stood where
deep, silent, still waters have unbroken re
pose. Cypress trees two hundred feet higi
went down. Their loftiest branches do mo-
reach the surface of the wonderful lake
Years before the great river had undermin
ed the country, the land went down an6
water came up. Everywhere around New
Madrid we have indubitable evidence tina
the mighty river finds its way far beneath
the earth's surface. An earthquakes shoct
broke down the earthen bridges that every
where along the river shores span might.
streams and deep subterranean lakes tina
are reservoirs to supply atmospheric mois
ture and hold the super abundant waters O
this broad valley"