Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1883-01-24
RIVER PHENOMENA
~ Developed by the Great MIssissippi-un'
measured Deposits of Mud.

49, Developed bY the Great Mlssissippt-on-
measured Deposits of Mud.
$ If person., says a correspondent
Of the Evening Post, describing the
phenomena of the Mississippi River,
"were to land at almost any point be-
tween st. Louis and New Orleans, he
would find that his foot wherever it
touched the bare earth would sink into
a peculiar yiscid mud, tenacious as
glue. Walking where leaves have fallen
from the trees, the mud at every step
would pick up mass of vegetation I'M
I'll at last his feet would appear like a
pair of animated door mats. Step now
into shallow puddle of water, say half
An inch deep, the mud dissolves like
Snow, the vegetable debris drops off as
If by magic, and the foot is free once
more. [ have often wondered at the
marvellous speed with which this mud,
usually SO tense, and, when sun-dried,
hard as rock, me1ts at the waters touch.
This peculiar mire, SO susceptible to
washing, extends all along the lower
Mississippi. Sometimes it is inter
mixed with slight porous sand-uow
and then it changes to a hard blue clay,
but both these also yield to water read
ily. Almost nowhere does one find
banks of natural rock, and scarcely a
graveI-bed oan be discovered along the
whole course of the stream from Mem
phis to the gulf. Now conceive the
longest river IN the world, with a cur
rent of sour or five miles an hour, turned
loose In a valley of this alluvial soil.
The immediate valley Is, say, forty miles
vide and 1000 miles long, with vast
areas of lowland, and little or no ascent
until the distant upland regions are
reached. To say that such liver will
be muddy Is 3 feeble phrase to express
the fact about the Mississippi.
Its waters are simply saturated
with oil all the year round. Men
who live on its banks say they can dis
cover with the eve no difference from
one month to another in the turbidness
of its food. The swift current turned
against bank cuts it as a knife cleaves
cheese. II has been known IN spots to
penetrate q solid bank thirty or forty
feet IN a day. Very often 1t will under
mine an acre or two of land, which all st
once will sink, while trees at the edge
fifty feet high drop roots first until their
tops disappear below the current. A
part OF the soil thus taken up falls at
once to the bottom, as soon as the cur
rent slaokened. Often q slowing of half
mile an hour at point mile or two be-
Low washed flank means the forming
of a great sand shoal. These shoals
sometimes rise as If by enchantment. A
steamer VIII ground across stream. She
draws SIX or seven feet, yet III thirty-six
hours there viii be formed In the eddy
below her keel d sand bank reaching TO
the waters snrface. II she swings I'M
evenly on this bank, she is IN constant
danger Of breaking her back" as the
river phrase goes. A bank formed IN
this manner around a steamer may some
times keep her aground IN her muddy
letters for months The ice floating
down from the Mississipp1's upper
waters usually sinks with It's muddy &C
emulation before it reaches Memphis,
and an old steamboat captain has told
RE that he has been astounded at ap-
parentIy striking bottom on this mud
Ice where the lead showed several
fathoms of water. Examples might thus
be multiplied to show the enormous
amount of earthly matter suspended IN
the Aississippi's food, not to mention
the unmeasured deposits at the great
rivers delta, or remOter facts which
concern the geological history of the
valley; and to all these must be added as
obstacles 20 Improvement the still
grander and more complex phenomena
following the great periodical floods OF
spring time, when the snow at the head
waters melts, and the lower stream
bursts It's banks,