The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1869-06-12
Current ofthc NIi.s,ssippf.

Inc ioiowihg Is from lecture by the Rev.
Edward Fcntaine, before the Academy of Sci
ences at New Orleans:
The general course of the river from Lake
ltasca TO the Gulf Of Mexico is due south Its
current, bottom, as well as top, through the
delta, is about four miles per hour. At low
water, its surface at New Orleans, is only about
hye feet above the sea level or the gulf surface.
while the bottom is about one hundred feet
below 1t. The bottom current is four miles an
hour opposite New Orleans, and sometimes in
The Southwest Pass; consequently, for 100 miles,
this current runs up Hill nearly 100 feet or, to-
make my meaning palmer, il the measurement
is correct, as shown by the soundings on your
maps, where the Southwest Pass is a quarter of
IL mile wide, it is 800 feet deep, and near the
month it is twenty feet deep, where it is more
than mile wide, and the current is still swift, 4
while the gulf is calm. Then this bottom cur.
rent, even in the Pass, ascends subauueous
hill, or runs up an inclined plane 100 feet high
The polar diameter of the earth is about twenty
miles shorter than the equatorial !; consequent
~, II the surface Of an exact globe be taken as al
level, every point OF which is equal distance from
the centre, the equator is - : miles higher or
farther from the centre than the poles -rgi.r@
Consequently the mouth OF tie Mississippi
river is higher than its soureea In courno ON par
lance it may be said to run up hill is VII ole
y
falls of ST Anthony. and all the rapids made
10y lodges OF rock, and entered Its vast alluyial
bed, rolls gradually below the mouth of Red
river to the Gulf with the enormous velocity of
four miles an hour. Great rivers, like the ANA
ron, La Platte, Niles and Ganges, which have a
fall as great or even greater, and whose courses
are north and south from the equitor, or TO the
east, fow to the oceans with velocity much
less.
Dut hat, no Of 4 10. "a
makes: | will venture to assert that it is
raused 2 BY the centrifugal force of the
earth, excited by its revulotion on its axis A
very simple illustration will demonstrate this
lake glass globe, and place, inside Of it o, few
leaden bird-shot. Pass an axis through it. an
revove il rapidly around it. and the shot will
fly up from every part OF the axis and form a
belt against the inner surface Of the sphere, at
the right angles of this axis, corresponding with
the equator So the centrifugal force now drives
all fluid matter on the earth's surface towards
'lie tropics. The pressure Of the atmosphere,
the attraction of gravitation. and whatever else
makes the centripetal force of the planet, gradu-
ally draws back each movable atom towards the.
poles. or the centre by way OF the poles Because
the down.hill, or surface inclination is towards
the poles or the lowest places. wish to remind
you that it is important Tor engineers in dealing
with this river, to discard from their .calcula-
lions All CONSIDERATIONS oaseu upon IDEAS when
might be correct when referred to other rivers
which run down hill, and which have swift cur
rents on the surface, and are still or sluggish in
deep water. Our great river is swift where Il is
deep, and where it is shallow. 1t IL silent in its
strength. 1t refuses to babble like petty brook,
or to chime and roar like its mountain sons.
THE Fathero Waters" leaves all noisy work to
he performed by his children. Almost as noise
less as the sun which warns or withers the field
of its valley, it irrigates or sweeps them away
Majestic and resistless, it rolls ~ the ocean
and almost without whisper. There is but
little of beauty in its aspect, but much of gram