The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1876-03-05
TRACES or ANTIQUITY.
THE ANCIENT CANALS OF TEE MISSISSIPPI
VALLEY.

February.l
Wendell Phillips with pleasing alacrity,
has mounted the rostrum once q week
through quarter of . century, to tell man
kind that "there is nothing new under the
SUM-" He might have added to his catalogue
Of modern novelties that are very, very old.
the canal connecting the Mediterranean and
Red seas. nd-buiiders had preceded
French engineers, and at an unknown peyiod
in the worlds history there had been another
Lesseps and another Suez Coal Humboldt
tells that in forgotten age and by
q forgotten race canal was dug across
the Isthmus of Darien, and unmistakable
traces of its whole length. bridging with wa
ter the narrow neck of land that separates the
two oceans. And yet how we have boosted
of modem progress, and modern daring, and
modern genius for tasks which modern vanity
has pronounced superhuman. The PROPOSE
tion-supposed not long ago to be wholly
new-to construct canals connecting rivers of
of this magnificent valley with one another,
and with the Great Likes and Mexican Gulf,
than Cyrus, or Solomon, or SesOstris.
Just below Cape Girardeau. Missouri, there
is deep fosse more than 100 hundred feet
wide. It extended in an unknown period il
the worlds history westwardly to the waters
of the White and St. Francis Rivers. Its OBJ
vious purpose was the diversion of large
volume of the superabundant 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 filed with water and
designed to lessen the flood tide of the mighty
river, render fooSs harmless and irrigate
rich alluvial fields. traverse the lowlands.
The earthquake of 1911 and 1912 moved
kho nkvuf rovo 70
heaved the country's surface as does o tenn
pest 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 violent storm had been
suddenly frozen. By this convulsion of ma
ture these canals were broken, and for the
first time since the days of David and Solo,
mon, or Sesostris, when they were dug, be-
came useless. I have traced these ancient
canals many miles. Palpably enough they
were not designed to render calamities, such
IS now desolate rich plantations from Cairo to
the sea, impossible, but the internal com.
merce of wide districts, and of dense and
mighty populations, BY means of these high
ways, was most cheaply conducted. For long
of these canals may be plainly discerned; and
not far from Osceola, Ark, brick abu ments
of q bridge that spanned canal have been
unearthed.
In many places there are dJuadds, or artifi.
cial lakes paved with adobe, and along these
canals, as everywhere along the Mississippi,
there are countless earthen nilometers, 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
SD cessive floods. Artificial lakes were con-
structed, perhaps as fi-hponds, or designed to
subserve purposes of reservoirs dug by Egyp-
tan monarchs. From these, and from canals
opened by Egyt's wisest masters, farms. dur.
ing the hot summer months, were irrigated.
Herodo.us tells-and Napoleon the Great in his
conversations at ST. Helena repeated the asser.
tion-that after these canals were dug the fail
ure Of crops in Egypt was rendered wholly
impossible There was hardly need for guano
wheen foodgates Of countless canals might be
opened and broad plantations submerged and
covered with loan as indispensable to success
full cotton culture in his valley as rotation of
crops on rugged hillsides Of Georgia and Con-
necticut.
Each planter of to-day in the lowlands
would gladly lose one crop in seven, that q
layer OF alluvium left by an overflow may
enrich his fields. How wise were they who.
in q forgotten age. not only created for them
selves by means Of these canals the cheapest
possible agencies of transportation, but re.
newed each year the soil that gave such won
derful harvests, and supported such dense
populations. twenty-five miles below Mem
phis fatboats leave the river, enter Blacklist
Lake, and thence the St. Francis River, and
at its mouth, sixty miles further south, re-
enter the Mississippi. Grant was not the first
seaman or warrior to send fleets and armies
through Yazoo Pass. Along this mighty
canal there are mounds everywhere, Coined
crate soldiers in 1863-64, occupied them to
resist the incursion OF Northern armies.
Gen. Grant was perhaps impellcd by the
same military necessity to cut the dyke that
closed this outlet, as were mound builders in
by-gone ages to construct the canal.
Bayous within the country described by the
Mississippi on the west, and Yszoo Pass and
Yazoo River on tie east, are beyond compu-
tation and comprehension. Steam boatmen
say that within the area defined by these
natural and artificial drains and highways,
there are such an infinite number of trans
verse canals connecting the Mississippi with
its lateral tributaries, that Q steamer drawing
five feet without crossing its own path could
traverse three or four thousand miles of navi.
gable waters The canal that connects Hush
puckenny Bayou Gtself, in my judgment,
excavated originally by the mound. builders),
with another, and with the Mississippi passes
through the plantation Of the late Hon An
drew Donelson. It is perfectly Straight for
nine miles, there is perfectly defined tow
path upon its western bank, and mounds and
fortified strongholds everywhere on either
side of the perfect canal.
What barbarians are we to close these end
less drains and cheapest agencies of COM
merce and Of perfect irrigation by means of
earth hen Wa11a costing inCaIcnlan1a Snma and
aggravating the very evils they are designed
to remedy. If intelligent explorations were
made, and map of so.called "bsyous" pre-
pared connecting the Mississippi with lateral
streams from the Missouri to the Gulf, we
would find that this great valley was once
drained by perfect system of engineering
skill, and these canals and lakes were so
planned, and SO enlarged, or lessened or null
tiplied, that however great the volume of the
springtime food-tide of the mighty river, it
was subdivided and distributed everywhere
over these rich slluvial plains. Their produc-
tive capacity was thus renewed each year, and
mound building cotton and wheat growers