The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1875-08-06

rent drives through such place In pref
~ lively way.
That trip we went TO Grand Gulf. from
New Orleans, In four days three hun
dred and forty miles); the Eclipse and
Shotwell did IL In one. We were nine
days out In the chute Of 63 (seven hun
dred milesl; the Eclipse and Shotwell
went there In three days.
just about generation ago boat
called the j. NJ. White, went from New
Orleans 10 Cairo in three days, six
hours and forty-tour minutes. Twenty
two years ago the Eclipse made the same
trip in three days, three hours. and TWEEN
~ minutes. About five years ago the su.
peru X. T.. Lee did il In three days and
one hour. This last Is called the fastest
trip on record. will try TO show that IL
was not. For this reason the distance
between New Orleans and Cairo, when
the j. NJ. White ran IL, was about eleven
hundred and six miles consequently her
average speed was q trifle over fourteen
miles per hour. In the Eclipse's day the
distance between the two ports had become
reduced 10 one thousand and eighty miles
consequently her average speed was
shade under fourteen and three.eighths
miles per hour. In the X. Il. Lees time
the distance had diminished 10 about one
thousand and thirty miles; consequently
her average was about fourteen and one
eighth miles per hour. Therefore the
Eclipse's was conspicuously the fastest
time that has ever been made.
These dry details are of importance In
one particular. They give me an oppor-
tunity of introducing one OF the Missis-
sippi's oldest ptculiarities-that OF short
ening its length from time 10 time. If
you Will throw long, plant appe-paring
over your shoulder, IL will pretty fairly
shape itself into an average section of the
Mississippi River, that il, the nine or ten
hundred miles tretching from Cairo, ILL
nois, southwark TO New Orleans, the same
being wonderfully crooked, with brief
straight bit here aud there at wide inter
walls. The two hrndred-mile stretch from
Cairo northward TO st. Louis Is by no
means so crooked. that being rocky
country which the river cannot cut much.
The water cuts the alluvial banks Of
the lower river into deep horseshoe
curves; 80 deep, indeed, that in some
places II you were 10 get ashore at one
extremity of the horseshoe and walk
across the neck, half or three quarters
of mile, You could sit down and rest a
couple of hours while your steamer was
coming around the long elbow. at a speed
of ten miles an hour, 10 take you aboard
gain. When the river is rising fast,
some scolndrel whose plantation l. back
in the country and therefore Of inf rior
value, has only TO watch his chance, cut
"A little gutter across the narrow neck of
land some dark night. and turn the water
into IL, and in a wonderfully short time
miracle has happened; 10 wit. the whole
Mississippi has taken possession OF that
little ditch, and placed the countryman's
plantation on its bank (quadrupling is
valued, and that other party's formerly
valuable plantation finds itself away out
yonder on big island; the old water
course around il will soon shoal up, boats
cannot approach within ten miles of il,
and down goes its value 10 fourth of It's
former worth. Watches are kept on those
narrow necks at needful times. and il a
man happens TO be caught cutting a ditch
across them. the chances are all against
his ever having another opportunity 10 cut
a ditch.
PRAY observe some Of the effects OF this
ditchinv business. Once there was a neck
opposite Port Hudson, Louisiana, which
was only halfa mile across, In its narrow
est place. You could walk across there
in fifteen minutes; but if you made the
journey around the cape on raft, you
travelled t4Tty-iive miles TO accomplish
the same thing. In 1722 the river darted
through that neck. deserted its old bed,
and thus shortened itself thirty-fve miles.
lr the same way IL shortened itself twen-
ty-five miles al Black Hawk Point in 1899
Below Red River Landing. Raccourci cut
on was made Thirty or forty years ago
think. This shortened the river twenty
eight miles. In our day. II you travel by
river from the s0uthernmost of thes e three
cut-offs 10 the northernmost. you 90 only
seventy miles. 10 do the same thing a
hundred and seventy-six years ago. one
had TO 90 hundred and fifty.eght miles
"a shortening of lightweight miles In that
trifling distance. At some forgotten time
in the past cut-ofis were made above Vida
liza, Louisiana. AT Island 90; at Island 81,
and at Hale's Point. These shortened the
river, In the aggregate, seventy-seven
miles.
Since my own day on the Mississippi,
am informed that cut-offs have been
made at Hurricane Island; Mt Island 100;
at Napoleon, Arkansas at Walnut
Bend and at Council Bend. These
shortened the river, in the aggregate, six
ty-seven miles. In my own time cutoff
was made at American Bend. which short
ened the river ten miles or more.
Therefore, the Mississippi between Cairo
and New Orleans was twelve hundred and
fifteen miles long one hundred and seven
ty-six years ago. IL was eleven hundred
and eighty after the cut of OF 1872. Ii was
one thousand and forty after the Ameri-
can Bend cutoff (somc sixteen or seven
teen years ago.. IL has lost slxty-seven
miles since. Consequently its length is
only nine hundred and geyentv.thrse miles
at present.
Now, If wanted to be one of those pom
derous scientific people, and "let on to
prove what had occurred in the remote
past by what had occurred In given time
in the recent past, or what will occur i'm
the far future by what has occurred in