Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1881-06-01
A wonderful River.

The Mississippi is wonderful river,
says Mr.. Banvard, and, although | have
Travelled through the four quarters of the
globe, have never seen its compeer. The
Nile, so famous In history, is insignificant
in comparison. The Mississippi is sui gen.
ems Its restless current Is constantly
making changes In Its hydrographical feat
ures. The working OF the currents and
their changes are unobserved by the ordinary
traveller who ploughs his way over the tur-
bid surface on swiftly moving steamer.
All are hidden from him. 1t requires
residence of years on its banks to rightly
understand the peculiar philosophy of Its
moving waters. Thus attentively stud
led during the fifteen years | was trading
in fiatboats among the Indians and settlers
along its banks in my early life.
One of the most striking peculiarities of
the river is the uniformity of its meanders,
or bends. Some of these are so uniform
and regular that they have the appearance
of having been described by the sweep of
compass, and consequently the course OF
stream is very sinuous. The bends are
consequently doubling on themselves and
forming what are called 'cut-offs," and
the river Is travelling about in the alluvium,
after changing Its bed many times, as well
as its form.
The Red river bend swept around some
fourteen miles; Walkers bend, sixteen
miles. The Red river bend broke through,
cutting eff its extent of fourteen miles.
The State afterward set men to work to
cut off Walkers bend into Tunica bend,
thus reducing apparently the length of
the river sixteen miles or more, a total in
the two cut-offs of about thirty miles,
which entirely changed the photography
of the stream and gave it this form In
stead of the very crooked one it had pre-
viously.
This also brought the mouth of Red river
some ten miles lower down than its origI-
nal position in the bend. When these
''cut-offs" occur, the channels of the old
river, or rather the opening of the old river
into the new, closes, or, as the people call
it, ''grows up" and in few years the old
river is shut completely out of sight and
forms lake back in the forests These
lakes or sold rivers" are traceable all along
the lower river. This growing up is
another peculiarly of the Mississippi and
would not be noticed by an ordinary trav-
eler, unless bend or island that was un-
dergoing this process was pointed out and
the philosophy explained to him.
The explanation is this: When a bend
breaks through an eddy is formed directly
under the point OF the cold river" In
this eddy a sand bar forms and on this
sand bar, in short time, the alluvium,
held in suspension by the waters, is preci-
pitated, when Immediately the young cot
tonwood trees begin to grow. Every year
new line of trees makes its appearance
and so on year after year and shuts the old
rIver out from view. The rows of cotton
woods in their growth are so exceedingly
uniform and regular that they have the
appearance of having been set out by human
hands to ornament park or pleasure gar
den. The different growths, year after
year, can be counted in regular graduation
from the sapling of the present year up to
the most magnificent tree of the forest of
five or six feet in diameter.