The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1876-03-16
The Ancient Canals Of the Mississippi
Valley.

Valley.
Mr.. l.. j. Dupre contributes the fol-
lowing to the Austin (Texas) Stylus:
Wendell Phillips, with pleasing alac-
rity, has mounted the rostrum once
week through a quarter of century, to
tell mankind that ''there is nothing new
under the sun" He might have added
to this catalogue of modern novelties
that are very, very old, the canal con-
Meeting the Mediterranean and Red Seas.
Mound-builders had preceded French
engineers, and at an unknown period in
the worlds history there had been an
other Lesseps and another Suez Canal.
Humboldt tells that in forgotten age
and by forgotten race canal was dug
across the Isthnus of Darien, and I'M
mistakable traces remain of its whole
length, bridging with water the narrow
neck of land that separates the two
oceans. And yet how we have boosted
of modern progress, and modern dar-
ing, and modern genius for tasks which
modern vanity has pronounced super
human. The proposition-suppOsed
not long ago TO be wholly new-to con-
struct canals connecting the rivers of
this magnificent valley with one another,
and with the Great Lakes and Mexican
Gulf, was partially effected ~ a race of
men older than Cyrus, or solomon, or
Sesostris.
just below Cape Girardeau, Missou-
ri, there is deep fosse more than one
hundred feet wide. 1t extended in an
unknown period in the worlds history
westwardly to the waters of the White
and St. Francis Rivers. Its obvious
purpose was the diversion of a large
volume of the superintendent water of
the Mississippi into smaller tributary
streams. At intervals of twenty or thir-
ty miles, were other canals, still plainly
defined, parallel with the first, and in
many places filled with water and de-
signed to lessen the floOd-tide of the
mighty river, render floods harmless
and irrigate rich alluvial fields. The
earthquake of 1911 and 1912 moved
across the country from east to west,
and upheaved the country's surface as
does a tempest the oceans pillows. At
ter 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 VIC
lent storm had been suddenly frozen.
By this cOnvulsion of nature these can
ais were broken and for the first time
since the days of David and Solomon,
or Sesostris, when they were dug, be-
came useless. have traced these an
cient canals many miles. Palpably
enough they were not designed to rem
der calamities, such as now
desolate rich plantations from
Cairo to the sea, impossible, but
the internal commerce of wide districts,
and of dense and mighty populations,
by means of these highways, was most
cheaply conducted. For long distances
towing-paths, lifted above the bank of
these canals, may be plainly discerned,
and not far from Osceola, Arkansas,
brick abutments of a bridge that
spanned a canal have been unearthed.
In many places there are GguadaS, or
artificial 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 successive floods. Artificial lakes
were constructed, perhaps as fishpOnds,
or designed to subserve purposes of re-
servoirs 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 conversations at st. Helena
repeated the assertiOn-that after these
canals were dug the failure of crops in
Egypt was rendered wholly impossible
There was hardly need for guano when
flOOdgates of countless canals might be
opened and broad plantations sub
merged and covered with loan as indis-
pensable to successful cotton culture
in this 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 layer of alluvium left by an
overflow may enrich his fields. How wise
were they who, in a forgotten age, not
only created for themselves by means
of these canals the cheapest possible
agencies of transportation, but renewed
each year the soil that gave such Won
derful harvests, and supported such
dense populations. twenty-five miles
below Memphis flatboats leave the riv-
er, enter Blacklist Lake, and thence the
st. Francis River, and atits mouth, six
ty miles further south, re-enter the Mis-
sissippi. Grant was not the first sea-
man or warrior to send fleets and ar
mics through Yazoo Pass. Along this
mighty canal there are mounds every
where. Confederate soldiers in 1868
81 occupied them to resist the incur
sions of northern armies. Gen. Grant
was perhaps impelled by the same mil
itary necessity to cut the dyke that
closed this outlet, rs were mound build
ers in by-gone ages to construct the ca
nal. Bayous within the country de-
scribed by the Mississippi on the west,
and Yazoo Pass and YazoO River on the
east, are beyond computation and COM
prehensiOn. SteambOatmen 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 a steam
er drawing five feet, without crossing
its own path could traverse three or four
thousand miles of navigable waters.
The canal that connects Hushpuckenny
Ra,-oY, Itcoff