St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1867-09-13
The eSubterrdnodn Flor oJ the Mis-
SIssippt.

\ correspondent of the Nashville In
ION and Dispatch having suggested that
Memphis was liable at any moment 10
fall IN" 10 a warery alyss beneath II,
caused 10y the subterrsncan flow Of The
MississiPpi, the Bulletin adds the follow
ing:
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 10 twenty
steamers BY these the earth At the wa
ter'- edge Is protected. aud the force Of
the surface current l. broken. Hence ii
happens that the earth al the waters
edge, and for ten or twenty feet below.
remains mbroken. The great body of
the mighty tide Of waters, forty or fifty
feet below. rushcS onward IN lis umresi,t-
ed course. rendinC AWAY the earth. How
Tar the stream passes beneath the CITY.
there i. OF course, no means Of ascer-
tanning, The explosion of torpedoes
forty or fifty feet below the rivers sur
iace, shook every building west Of the
bayou Bcyond the bayou, the shock
was unhee,led. unfelt.
Many wears AGO a saw mill was at
work in The swamps of Arkansas, TWEEN
ty miles iron The Mississippi. The own
CT awoke one bright morning 10 find his
well dry, ia which the day before there
was wafer three or four feet deep. lie
cut a trench 10 a broad long surface pond,
not far away, and was again supplied
with an abundance OF wafer. This trench
connected The pond and well Three
days elapsed, and the pond and well both
were empty. The old man OF tie mil
was ama>eL The story was told 10 a
traveller iron Memphis. It's PLAIN
enough" he said, 1.-The river J. lower
than for years rasi, and your well and
pond have empted themselves into the
great sewer Of the continent Tie
Mississippi not only overfiows bui under
iicN- all the broad valley through which
Il lasses. IL channel, however broad
and deep, could not contain all The rains
ilIat fall and streams that come down
from the mountains, Territories and
States ui America.
Al Fort Pillow and Randolph every
eridence of war has disappeared, swal-
lowed up hy the grcat nver. Earth
works Al Randolph, built IN 1861, 500
yards from the shore, have gone 10 the
Ralize, At both these places the river
cureni, a. here Al Memphis, strikes the
shore al almost right angles. a city pa
PER tells how a planter, within the week,
1000 worth Of supplies upon
tle river bank somewhere IN Arkansas
lie had not gone half mile when the
country behind linn disappeared with all
IL stores
Roelioot Lake i fathomlcss. Itisnot
far from The river. The night before the
earthquake Of 1912, lofty trees stood
where deep, silent, sill waters have un-
broken repuse- CypreSs trees two hun
dred feet high Went down. Their loiti-
Isl branches do not reach The surface OF
tie wonderful lake. Years before the
grest river had undermined the country,
ihe land went down and wafer came up
Eyervwhere around New Madrid We have
indubitahle evidence that the mighty nv
er finds lis way far beneath the oarth's
surface. An earthquakes shock broke
down the esrthen bridges that every
where along the river shores span mighty
streams and deep subterranean lakes that
are reservoirs to supply atmospheric mois-
ture, and hold the superabundant waters
of this broad valley