The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1875-08-05
SCIENCE AND THE MISSISSIPPI
RIVER.

RIVER.
Mark Twain concludes his papers on
"Old Times on the Mississippi" in the
August number Of the atlantic Monthly.
In fact we are obliged to think more
highly OF them than eyer and TO avow
enlarged views OF the authors capacity,
since lie has entered the scientific field,
and begun to discuss along with the geoI
ogists and psychologists the most abstruse
questions respecting tiuyiatile phenomena.
His speculation regarding the past and
future OF the Mississippi are worthy to
be compared with the most ingenious by
potheses Of the Darwinian archgologlsts
We invite attention 10 them, only
promising that Mr.. Twain. not we, must
be held responsible for the correctness OF
the premises on which they are based:
"Just about generation ago, a boat
called the }. NJ. White went from New
Orleans to Cairo in three days, three
hours and twenty minutes. Twenty-Five
years ago the Eclipse made the same trip
in three days, three hours and twenty
minutes. About five years ago the SUI
perb K. f.. Lee did it in three days and
one hour This last is called the fastest
trip on record | viii try TO show that
it was not. For this reason; the dis
lance between New Orleans and Cairo,
when the j. NJ. White ran ii, was about
eleven hundred and six miles; c0nse-
qucntly her average speed was tritle
over fourteen miles per hour. In the
Eclipses day the distance between the
two ports had become reduced to one
thousand and eighty miles; consequently
her average speed was a shade under
fourteen and three cights miles per hour.
In the K. f.. Lees time the
distance had diminished TO
about one thousand and thirty miles
consequently her average was about
fourteen and one eighth miles per hour.
Therefore the Eclipse's was conspicuoasIy
the fastest time that has ever been made.
"These dry details are of importance
in one particular. They give an oppor-
tunity of introducing one of the MisSlss-
ippi oldest pecularities-that Of short
cning its distance from time to time. If
YOU will throw long, plant applc-par-
fairly shape Itself into an average section
of the Mississippi River, that is the nine
or ten hundred miles stretching from
Cairo. Illinois, southwark to New Or
leans. the same being wonderfully
crooked, with brief straight bit here
and there at wide intervals. The two
hundred miles stretch from Cairo north
ward to st. Louis Is by no means so
crooked, that being IL rocky country
which the river cannot cut much.
The water cuts the ,dluvial banks of
tho Iower' river into deep horseshoe
curves; so deep indeed, that in some
places if YOU were to get ashore at one
extremity of the horseshoe and walk
across the neck, halfor three quarters OF
mile, YOU could sit down and rest for
couple OF hours while your steamer was
coming around the long elbow, at speed
Of ten miles an hour 10 take you aboard
again. When the river is rising fast
some scouudrel whose plantation is back
in thu country, and therefore of An IN
fcrior value, has only to watch his
chance. cut little gutter across the mar
row neck OF land some dark night, and
turn the water into it, and in wonder
ful short time miracle has happened:
to wit, the who Q Miss ssippI has taken pos
session of that ntlle ditch, and placed
the countryman's plantation on its bank
luuadruplng its value) and that other
partv's formerly valuable plan alton finds
itself away out Wonder on BIZ islnndi
the old water course around 1t will soon
shoal up. boats cannot appr ach within
ten miles of it and down GOES its value
to a fourth OF its former worth. Watch
crs are kept on those narrow ecks, at
ueedtul times, and if a man happens 10
be caught cutting ditch across them,
the chances are all against ms ever
having another opportunity to cut
ditch.
"Prav observe some If the effects OF
this dilching business Once there was
neck opposite Port HuIson, La, which
was only half 81 mile across in It's mar
rowcst place. You could walk across
there m fifteen minutes; but if You made
the Journey round the cape on Il raft,
YOU Travelled thirty five miles to ac-
compli~h the same thing. In l122 the
river dartci through that neck, desert
ed the old bed, and thus shortened IT.
self thirty-fvc miles. In the same way
il shortened itself twenty-five miles AT
Black Hawk Point in 1899. Below
Red River Landing, Raccourci cutoff
was made Thirty or forty years ago |
think. This shortened the river twenty
eight miles. In our day, you travel by
river from the southcrnmost of these cut
oils to the northcrmo>t YOU on Y go seven
tv miles. To do the same thing one hun
drcd and scyenty-SiX years ago, one had
to go one hundred and eighty milcs-a
shortening OF eighty eight miles in that
traitg distance. At some forgotten
time in the past, cut-otls were made above
Vidulia. La, at island 92i AT island 81;
and at Halrs'. point. These shortened
the river, the IN aggregate, scvcnty-scven
miles
Since my own day on the Mississippi
I Am informed that .cut-otlS have been
malcat Hurricane Island; at island 1907
i. Napoleon, Ark; at Waluut Bend, and
al Council Bend. These shortened the
river. in the aggregate, siNty-scyen
miles. In my own time cut OIL was
made ut American D'Hu NH''" SH''V-
cncd the river ten miles or more.
"Thcrcgorc thc Mississippi between Cairo
and New Orleans was twelve hundred
and fifteen miles long one hundred and
seventv-six years ago. 1t was eleven
hundred and eighty after the cutoff OF
1922. 1t was one thousand and forty
after the American Bend cutoff some
sixteen or seventeen years ago. 1t has
lost sixty-sevcn miles Slnc'. Conse,
quently its length !. only nine hundred
and seventv.three miles ut present.
"Now, if 1 wanted 10 be one O.! those
pondcrous scientific people, and let on
TO prove what had occurred IN Inc re-
cent past, or what will occur IN the far
future by what has occurred in late
years, what an opportunity Is here!
} Z. i. NO y