The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1867-08-08
The subterran Flow of the Mississippi

A correspondent of the Nashville Union
and Dispatch having suggested that Mem
phis was liable at any moment to +" fall in y
to watery abyss beneath it, caused by
the subterranean flow of the Mississippi, the
Bulletin adds the following:
The river shore in the navy yard has rap
idly disappeared There steamers rarely
land. In trout 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 fourteen or twenty
feet below, remains unbroken. The great
body of the mighty tide Of waters, forty
and fifty feet below, rushes onward In its
unresisted course rending away the earth,
How far the stream passes beneath the
city, there is, of course no means of ascer-
tanning, The explosion of torpedoes, forty
or fifty feet below The rivers surfase, shook
every building west Of the bayou. Beyond
the bayou, the shock was unheeded, unfelt
Many years ago a saw mill was at work
in the swarnps of Arkansas, twenty miles
from the Mississippi. The owner awolle 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 an abundance of
water This trench connected the pond
and well. Three days elapsed, and pond
and we'll 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, "theriver 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 overaows but aaderBoaOS all the broad
valley through which it passes Its chan
mel, however broad and deep, could not
contain all the rains that fall and stream s
that come down from the mountains, terri
tories and States of America.
At Fort Pillow and Randolph every evil
dence of war has disappeared, swallowed
up by the great river Earthworks at Ran
dolph, built in 1861, 800 yards from the
shore, have gone to the BaIice. At both
these places the river current, as here at
Memphis, strikes the shore at almost
right angles. A city paper tells us how
planter within the week, disposited 50 900
worth of supplies upon the river bank some
where in Arkansas. He had not gone half
q mile when the country behind him disap
peared with all his stories
ReeIfoot Lake is fathomess. It is not far
from the river. The night before the earth
quake Of 1912, lofty trees stood where deep,
silent, still waters have unbroken repose
Cypress trees two hundred feet high vent
down. Their loftiest branches do not reach
the surface of the wonderful lake Years
before the great river had undermined the
country, the land went down and water
came up. Everywhere around new Madrid
we have dubitable evidence that the
mighty river hnde its way far beneath the
ea,th's surface. An earthquake's shock
broke down the earthen bridges that every
where along the river shores span mighty
streams and deep subterranean lakes that
are reservoirs to supply atmospheric mois
suEe and hold the superintendent waters of
this broad valley,