The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-05-16
RIVERS MOVING WESTWARD.
Is This Accounted For by the Revolu
ton of the Earth on It's Axis?
From the New Orleans Picaylne.

ton of the Earth on It's Axis?
From the New Orleans Pcaytne.
The people who live ON the banks of the
Mississippi river are accustomed to the as
tonishing activity of this vast volume of
moving water in shifting its channel and
cutting away its banks in one place while
it builds up new territory at another. The
entire alluvial region of the Mississippi val
ley was created by the river, and the land
it has built up is ever at the mercy of the
forces that made it.
So long as the changes wrought by this
mighty current are all in the same national
limits no political complications are posi-
BILE, consequent upon the ravages of the river
and its power to transfer territory from one
place to another. 1t would be different if
two nationalities were concerned, and some
thing like this is coming INTO view in the
case of the Rio Grande, which in the
boundary for long distance between the
United States and Mexico. In this connec-
ton the following statement, which comes
from Mexico, is of interest,":
Gov. GARLIC, of the State of chihuahua,
has recently made a trip of investigation
along the banks of the Rio Grande from
Paso del Norte down for a distance of a out
lOO miles. He found to his aston shment
that the river was making slow but con-
slant inroadS into Mexican territory, eating
away the Mexican banks and Deposit g
them on the American side, and that thus
many thousand acres of the most fertile
lands in the Rio Grande valley on the Next
can side had been washed away Upon in
quiry into this subject he ascertaiued from
the leading inhabitants of that section of
country that this had been going ON for
over generation, and that large numbers
OF people had thus been made homeless and
forced to leave the country, many of them
going to the New Mexican settlements of
Mesilla, Chamberino, Launiore, Las Cruces,
and SocorrO. Gov. Garlic ascertained also
that great losses of valuable territory had
been taking place in the vicinity of Paso
del Norte, at which town defensive works
are now being erected by competent en-
gineers The Governor has, since his return
to Chihuahua, Indicated that he is fully i'm
pressed with the Importance of the subject,
and that he intends to advise not only the
State representatives of the city of Chi
huahua, but also the national Co gress now
in session in the city of Mexico, to make APP
preparations to be expended in fortifying
and mattressing and riprapping the river
bank at all exposed points. He says these
encroach ments of the river, unless speedily
stopped, will cause a loss of national
wealth, irreparable loss to Paso del Norte,
and the financial ruin of hundreds of fami-
lies.
Apart from the International interests in
volved, there are specuations of a scenti-
tic nature suggested in the premises which
may be worth mention. 1t appears that the
western and southwestern bank of the Rio
Grande is the one which suffers most from
the abrasion of the current. Why does the
river show this tendency to work to the
westward? Something like this appears in
the case of the Mississippi Formerly the
river had its principal debouchment into
the sea through Bayou Manchac and the
lakes. In the course Of time that route was
abandoned for the one now known as the
mainriver, which is very considerably to the
westward of the old outlet. In the mean
time the river has shown a disposition to
transfer its channel still further to the west
ward tnrough the Atchafalaya. Can it be
made to appear from these facts that there
is a tendency in great rivers flowing in gen
eral directions along meridianS of the
earth's longitude to swerve to the Westward
CAN'T be held that because of the rotation
of the earth on its axis to the eastward
the weight of the water in such longitud-
inal rivers is thrown by the centrifugal
force against the western banks so as to
abrade them with increased energy and
effect? The matter is worth examina-