The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1876-03-25
MOUND BUILDERS,
The -fncient Canals Of the Mississippi Yale,
Their guilty.

A correspondent of the Austin (Texas
Stylus gives the following account o
some of the antiquities of the Mississippi
valley:
Humboldt tells that in forgotten
age, and by forgotten race, canal was
| dug across the Isthmus of Darien, and
unmistakable traces of its whole length
bridging with water the narrow neck oil
land that separates the two oceans. And
| yet how we have boosted of modern pro.
gress and modern daring, and modern
| genius for tasks which modern vanity
has pronounced superhuman. The pro-
position-supposed not long ago to be
wholly new-tO construct canals con-
Meeting rivers of this magnificent valley
with one another, and with the great
lakes and Mexican gulf, was partially
effected by race of men older than Cy-
rus or Solomon or Sesostris.
Just below Cape Girardeau, Mo-,
there is deep fosse more than one hun
dred feet wide. 1t extended in an I'M
known period in the worlds history
westwardly to the waters of White and ST.
Francis rivers. Its obvious purpose was
the diversion ola large volume of the SUI
perabundant water of the Mississippi into
smaller tributary streams. At intervals
of twenty or thirty miles other canals,
still plainly defined, parallel with the
first, and in many places filled with wa
ter, and designed to lessen the fosd tide
of the mighty river, render floods harm
less, and irrigate rich alluvial fields, ira
verse the lowlands. The earthquake of
1911 and 1912 moved across the country
from east to west and upheaved the
country's surface as does tempest the
oceans pillows. After the CONFUSION,
the lowlands of the Mississippi west of
Cairo and New Madrid were broken in
ridges as if the waves of the sea, in the
midst Of a violent storm, had been sud-
denly frozen. By the CONFUSION of ma
ture these canals were broken, and for the
first time since the days of David and
Solomon, or Sesostris, when they were
dug, became useless. Ihave traced these
ancient canals many miles. Probably
they were not designed to render calami-
ties, such as now desolate rich planta-
lions from Cairo to the sea, impossible,
but the internal commerce of wide dis
tricts, and of dense and mighty popula-
tons, by means of these highways, was
most cheaply conducted. For long dis
for fou he a.
bank of these canals may be plainly dis
cerned, and not far from Osceola, Ark,
brick abutments off bridge, that spanned
a canal, have been unearthed. In many
places there are aguadas, or artificial
lakes paved with adobe, and along these
canals, as everywhere along the Missis-
sippi, there are countless earthern Milo
meters, like those of stone at the base of
the pyramids of Egypt and along the
banks of the Euphrates, designed to mark
each year the highest of successive
floods.
Artificial lakes were constructed, per-
haps as fish ponds, or designed to SUBJ
serve purposes of reservoirs dug by
Egyptian monarchs. From these, and
from canals opened by Egypt's wisest
masters, farms, during the hot summer
months, were irrigated. Herodotus tells |
and Napoleon the Great, in his con-
VIBRATIONS at st. Helena, repeated the as
after these canals were dug, |
the failure of crops in Egypt was rem
dered wholly impossible. There was
hardly need for guano when floodgates
of countless canals might be opened and
broad plantations submerged and COW
cred with loan, as indispensable to sue
cessful cotton culture in this valley as
of crops on the rugged hillsides
Of Georgia or Connecticut. Each plant
er of to-day in the lowlands would glad
ly lose one crop in seven, that layer of
alluvium left by an overflow may enrich
his fields. How wise were they who, in
a forgotten age, not only created for
by means of these canals the
cheapest possible agencies of transporta-
ton, but renewed each year the soil that
gave such wonderful harvests and sup
ported such dense population.
Twenty-Five miles below Memphis
1atboats leave the river, enter Blacklist
AXE, and thence the St. Francis river,
and its mouth, sixty miles further south,
re-enter the Mississippi. Grant was not
The first seaman or warrior to send armies
through the Yazoo Pass. Along this
mighty canal there are mounds every
where. Confederate soldiers in 1S63-64
them to resist the incursion Of
lothern armies. Gen. Grant was, per-
maps, impelled by the. military necessity
% cut the dyke that closed this outlet,
Is were mound builders in by-gone ages
% construct the canal. Bayous within
he country described by the Mississippi
IN the west, and Yazoo Pass and Gazoo
liver on the east, are beyond comp uta-
ion and comprehension. Steamboat
men say that within the area defined by
,hese natural and artificial drains and
highways, there are such an infinite
number of transverse canals, connecting
he Mississippi with its lateral tributa-
les, that a steamer drawing five feet
without crossing its own path could
raverse three or four thousand miles of
lavigable waters. The canal that con-
lects Hushpuckenny bayou Gtself, in
ny judgment, excavated originally by
he mound builders) with another, and
With the Mississippi, passes through the
plantation of the late Hon. Andrew J.
Donelson. 1t is perfectly straight for
en- miles, there is a perfectly defined
owpath upon its western bank, and
mounds and fortified strongholds every
where on either side of the perfect canal.
What barbarians are we to close these
,ndless drains and cheapest agencies of
commerce and of perfect irrigation by