American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1875-04-03
PLOTTING ON THE MISSISSIPPI

the following account, by Mark Twain,
of portion Of his experience as q river
pilot on the Mississippi:
Ship channels are buoyed and lighted,
and therefore il is q comparatively easy
undertaking TO learn to run them; clear
water rivers, with gravel bottoms, change
their channels very gradually. and there
fore one needs to learn them but once,
but plotting becomes another matter
when you apply it to vast streams like
the Mississippi and the Missouri, whose
alluvial banks cave and change constant
ly, whose snags are always hunting up
new quarters, whose sand-bars are never
at rest, whose channels are forever dodg-
ing and sinking, and whose obstructions
must be confronted in all nights and all
weathsrs without the aid of single
lighthouse or single buoy; for there
is neither light nor buoy to be found any
where in all this three or four thousand
miles of villaipous river. Ifeel justified
in enlarging upon this great science for
the reason that l feel sure no one has
ever yet written a paragraph about it
who had pilOted q steamboat himself,
and so had practical knowledge of the
subject.
When I had learned the name and po-
sition of every visible feature of the
river; when had SO mastered its shape
that I could shut my eyes and trace it
from st. Louis to New Orleans; when
had learned to read the face of the water
as one would Gull the news from the
morning paper: and finally, when l had
trained my dull memory to treasure up
an endless array of soundings and cross
ing-marks, and keep fast hold to them, l
judged that my education was complete !;
so I got to fitting my cap to the side of
my head and wearing o toothpick in my
Oh ho " II had iS
eyes on these airs. One day he said:
what is the height of that bank yon-
der, at Burgess"
How can / tell, sir? 1t is three
quarters of a mile away"
glass;"
took the glass, and presently said:
can't tell. suppose that that bank
is about a foot and a half high
Foot and half That's a six-foot
bank: How high was the bank along
here last trip"
IL don't know; l never noticed"
you didn't Well, you must always
do it hereafter"
"Why."
Because you'll have to know a good
many things that it tells you. For one
thing, it tells you the stage of the river
tells you whether there's more water
was last trip"
The leads tell me that" l rather
thought / had the advantage of him
there.
Yes, but suppose the leads lie? The
bank would tell you SO, and then you'd
stir those leadsmen up bit. There was
a n-foot bank here last trip, and there
is only a six-foot bank now. What does
that signify."
Thof hA
than 1t was last trip"
falling!"
Rising"
No, it ain't.''
81 guess l am right, sir. Yonder is
. some drift-wOod floating down the
stream"
"a rise starts the drift-wood, but then
It kaeps on floating awhile after the
tell you about this Wait till YOU come
to place where it shelves little. Now
here, do you see this narrow belt of fine
sediment? That was deposited while the
water was higher. You see the drift
wood begins to strand, too. The bank
helps In other ways. Do you see that
stump on the false point."
"Ay, ay, sir"
swell, the water is Just up to the
io"sS VI H. Aou hiost MAKE i note OF
that"
Why?"
Because that means that there's seven
feet in the chute of 1O3."
But 1O3 is long way up the river
yet"
That's where the benefit of the bank
comes in. There is water enough in 10:
nOsc, yet there may not be by the time We
get there; but the bank Will keep us
posted all along. You don't run close
chutes on falling river, upstream, and
there are precious few that you are al
lowed to run at all down stream There.
law of the United States against it
The river may be rising by the time We
get to 1O3, and in that case we'll run it
We are drawing-how much?"
"Six feet aft-six and half forward. ,
"Well, you do seem to know some
thing"
But what particularly want to know
is, if Ihave got to keep UP an everlasting
measuring of the banks of this river
200 miles, month in and month out?'
"Of course"
NV emotions were too deep for words
for a while Presently l said:
land how about those cnutes? Are
there many of them?"
Il should say so. / fancy we sham
run any of the river this trip as you've
ever seen it run before-so to speak. il
the river begins to rise again Wen go III
behind bars that you've always seer
standing out of the river, high and dry
like the roof of house; well cut across
low places that you've never noticed a
all, right through the middle of bars tina
cover many acres of the river; wei
creep through cracks where you've al