The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1869-12-11
Marvels of the Mississippi River.

Marvels of the Mississippi River.
Sixteen years ago an old gen.
tleman from Virginia, from whose
grave mint now grows luxuriant-
ly, and whose 'sspiritual'' breath
ing must be purple alcoholic flames,
undertook to construct a plank
road forty miles across the swamp
of the Mississippi. His steam
mill was erected twenty miles
from the river shore. A shallow
we'll furnished abundance of wa
ter. Within a week the well was
empty. A surface pond covering
several acres was turned by a
trench into the well and the mill
greaned, was hungry for food for
it's teeth Of iron, and it grappled
water by the tierce. Old Mint
Julip awoke one bright sunny
morning, the mill stood still, the
we'll was empty, and fishes by. the
myriad houndered in the mud
that constituted the bottom Of the
pond. Old Mint Julip was amaz-
ed. His thirsty old mill had abb
sorbed ten thousand barrels of
water. There was no accounting
for the extraordinary incident
He sat upon the roadside calcula-
ting the cost Of force pumps and
fathom1ess wells, and brooding
over the mysterious disappear
ance of the pond, when a traveller
came by and incidentally remark
ed that the Mississippi, within
three weeks, had fallen thirteen
feet. The mystery was solved.
The pond and we'll were a part
and parcel of the distant river
It not only, when its banks are
full, overflows the imperial do
main but overflow the whole val
ley. The earthquake of 1Sl1-l2
disclosed bright streams, flowing
in all directions; far beneath the
earth's surface, in the swamps of
the Mississippi-Reelfoot Lake,
which then appeared for the first
time, is fathomless. Three of the
loftiest cypress trees project above
the surface along the lake shore,
while at more distant points the
tallest monarchs of the forest
have gone down into measureless
depths.
For this beautiful sheet of wa
ter, clear and deep as the sea,
abounding in fish, and covered in
winter time by water fowls, we
are indebted to the fact that the
Mississippi, the drain Of CONT
nent, is not half visible to the
eye of man, and the very vastness
Of floods that sweep down from
all the rivers between two ranges
of mountains, two thousand miles
apart, renders it impossible for a
single visible narrow channel to
contain all the rains that fall and
SHOWS that melt. Wells have been
dug, I am credibly informed, in
Louisiana, miles from the Missis-
isippi, and hardly were they fin
ished when the amazed Paddy
who has excavated them has
drawn forth Mississippi catfish.
Curiously enough, the river is
constantly Tightening it's own
shores and upheaving it's own
"levees.'' At each food fresh
deposits of earth are made upon
the, constantly swelling banks,
until even now the river runs
upon a ridge higher than the
house-tops of sugar and cotton
planters who dwell within a mile
OF the waters edge.
Among the attractions of the Suez
Canal excursion the most curious
one is an excursion to the Elephan-
tine Islands, where stands the an
cient Nilometer, built many centu-
ries before Christ's birth. The Milo
meter has not been visited before
since 1899. 1t consists of some
gigantic .calcerous blocks on the
shores Of the river, near the Trop=
ic Of Cancer. The ancient Egyp-
tians built it to mark the rise and
fall Of the Nile, and to know
when to avert an inundation. The
island on which it stands is unin-
habited; but, strange to say, is al
most a paradise, glorious with
tropic beauty. A French compa-