New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-07-25


throw q long, plant apple pairing over your
shoulder, it will pretty fairly shape itself
into an average section of the Mississippi
river; that is, 900 or 1000 miles stretching
from Cairo, Illinois, eouthward to New Or
leans, the same being wonderfully crooked.
with brief straight here and there at wide
intervals. The quo mile stretch from Cairo
Dorthward to St. Louis is by no means so
crooked, that being q rocky country which
the river can not cut much.
The water cuts the alluvial banks of the
CLOVER" river into deep horseshoe curves;
SO deep, indeed, that in some places if you
we're to get ashore at one extremity Of the
horse shoe and walk across the neck, half or
three quarters OF Q mile, you could sit down
and rest a couple Of hours while your steam
er was coming around the long elbow, at a
speed OF ten miles an hour. to take you
aboard again. When the river is rising
fast, some scoundrel whose plantation is
back in tho country, and therefore of infe
riOr value, has only to watch bic chance,
cut little gutter across the narrow neck Of
land some dark night. and turn the water
into it, and in wonderfully short time q
miracle has happened; 10 wit, the whole
Mississippi has taken possession Of that
little ditch. and placed the cOuntryman's
plantation on it's bank (quadrupling it's
valued, and that other party's formerly val
nable plantation finds itself away out yon-
der on . big island: the old water course
around it will soon shoal up, boats can not
approach within ten miles Of it, and down
goes its value to q fourth of its former
worth. Watches are kept on those narrow
necks, at needful times, and if a man hap
pens to be caught cutting ditch across
them, the chances are all against his ever
having another opportunity to cut a ditch.
Pray observe some of the effects OF this
ditching business. Once there was q neck
opposite Port Hudson, Louisiana, which
was only half q mile across. in its narrow
est place. You could walk across there
in fifteen minutes; but if you made the
journey around tho cape on . raft. you
travelled thirty.five miles to accomplish
darted through that neck. deserted it's old
bed. and thus shortened itself thirty five
miles. In the came way itfshortened itself
twenty-five miles at Black Hawk Point, in
1899. Below Red river landing, Raccourci
cutoff was made (:hirty or forty years ago.
think. This shortened the river twenty
eight miles: In our day, if you travel by
the river from tho southermost of these
three cut-Offs to the nOrthermost, you 90
only seventy miles To do the same thing
l76 years ego. one had to 20 l58 miles!-a
shortening Of eighty-nine miles in that
tritiing distance. At some forgotten time
in the past, cut-Otfs were made above
Vidalia, Louisiana; at island 80; at island
"a; 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; at island 100; at Napo-
leon, Arkansas; at Walnut Bend; and
at Council Bend. These shortened the
river, in the aggregate, sixty. seven miles.
In my own time a cutoff was made at
American Bend, which shortened the river
ten miles or more.
Therefore: the Mississippi between Cairo
and New Orleans was 1915 miles long l76
years ago. 1t was 1850 after the cutoff of
1922. 1t was l04O after the American Bend
cut OH (sOme sixteen or seventeen years
agO). 1t has lost sixty-seven miles since.
Consequently its length is only 973 miles at
present.
Now, it / 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 in the far |
future by what has occurred in late years,
what an opportunity is here! Geology never
had such chance, nor such exact data to |
argue from! Nor development of specles,'
either! Glacial epochs are great things, but |
they are vague-vague. Please observe:
In the space of one hundred and seventy !
six years the Lower Mississippi has short
ened itself two hundred and forty two
miles. This is an average Of a
trtie over one mile and third
per year. Therefore, any. calm person.
who is not blind or idlotic, can see
! million years ago next November, the
Lower Mississippi river was upwards of
me million three hundred thousand miles
ong, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico !
ike fishing-rod. And by the same token
my person can zee that seven hundred and
orty two years from now the Lower Missis-
ippi will be only mile and three quarters
ong, and Cairo and New Orleans will have
oined their streets together, and be plOd-
ling comfortably along under a single
mayor and mutual beard Of aldermen
there is something fascinating about sci.
nee. One gets such wholesale returns of
onjecture out Of such trifing investment
fact.
When the water begins to flow through
ne of those bitches l have been speaking
+, it is time for the people thereabouts to |
iove. The water cleaves the banks away
Ike knife. BY the time the ditch has be-
ONE twelve or fifteen feet wide, the calam-
y is as good as accomplished, for no power
a earth can stop it now. WheE the width
as reached hundred yards, the banks
E gin to peel of in slices half an acre wide.
he current flowing around the bend tray
ed formerly only five miles an hour; now
is tremendously increased by the shorten :
e of the distance. l was on board the !
ret boat that tried to go through the cut =
at American Bend, but we did not get
trough. 1t was toward midnight, and
lid night it was-thunder, lightning, and =
rrents of ram. 1t was estimated that the y
TRENT in the cutoff was making about
teen or twenty miles an hour; twelve or 8
irteen was the beat our boat could do,
zen in to!erably slack water, therefore per- =
Fps We were foolish to try the cutoff. =
owever, Mr.. X. was ambitious, and he
pit on trying. The eddy running up the :,
'nk, under the point" was about as "
,ift as the current out in the middle; so %
would go flying up the shore like "
,htning express train, get on big head y
cam, and ''stand by Tor surge" when
, struck the current that was whirling by =
9 point. But all our preparations were
eless. The instant the current hit us it
I'm us around like top, the water de-
ged the forecastle, and the boat careened n
far over that one could hardly keep his Y,
1t. The next instant we were away down fr
Up out of the woods. We tri j the ex M
rinent four times. stood on the fore. N
stle companion way to see. 1t was as
lishiDg to observe how suddenly the boat CT
uld spin around and turn tail the mo- OF
mt she emerged from the eddy and the
trent struck her nose. The sounding | ne
,cussion and the quivering would m
ve been about the same if she tn
] come full speed against sand ia
ok. Under the lightning flashes
, could see the plantation cabins and the M
IDLY acres tumble into the river; and the tn
sh they made was not a bad effort at
nder. Once, when we spun around, we ca
= missed house about twenty feet, tn
t had light burning in the window; tt
IN tho same instant that house went tn
rboard. Nobody could stay on our fore wi