Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1890-04-28
VASTESOF WATER
The Districts Flooded by the
Father of Waters.
Hundreds of People Rescued
by the Relief Boats.

New Ones Reported-A New Outlet Ad-
vOcated Before a Senate Committee.
Congress ApprOpriates $3.50, 900 for the
Sufferers.
NEW ORLEANS, April 29.-A corre-
spondent sent the following from Bayou
Sara, Friday: ...
This morning an early start was made
for the crevasses up the river While
there are now no less than ten crevasses
in the Point Coupee levee front, there
are two that so completely overshadow
the others in magnitude and importance
that the other eight seem hardly worth
mentioning, though each, when seen by
Starting from Bayou Sara the first
crevasse on the opposite side of the river
is about a mile below the town, on the
Taylor place.
It broke early on Monday morning. 1t
Is a very moderate-sized levee, and the
break is some 200 feet wide. The next
Is smaller break on the Taylor place,
about half mile up the river. About
400 yards further up the river is another
break on the Pecan place, then comes a
about six miles further up the river is
the Fanny Richie crevasse, which is of a
more formidable character than those
below it.
Here the volume of water is some six
feet deep and over 400 feet wide. The
current is very swift, and sends roar
ing, ragged-looking cataract through the
break, tearing through grove of pecan
and hve-oak that stand just behind the
levee. The back water spreads out in a
vast overflow that reaches into the
swamp and reaches the Atchafalaya
overflow. There are many houses and
cabins standing In the path Of the food,
but as yet few, If any, have been washed
away.
How far the water from this break
has been instrumental in flooding the
country is impossible to determine, for it
is assumed that even had the lower levee
been held the water from the upper
break would have been here by this
time, and flooding of these plantations
would only have been a question of a
few days at the furthest. AS it is, the
whole river front from a point below
Taylor's to Old river, if not under, would
be soon. A great deal of stock has been
taken out, but there is much more that
must be removed or lost in q very short
time.
About three miles up the river from
the Fanny Richie crevasse comes a small
break on the Stonewall place. This
crevasse is about 100 feet wide and six
or seven feet deep. The break in Nor
ganza proper is about five miles still
further up the river, but this is not the
Morganza break that caused the panic
when Mr.. Glynn telegraphed that Nor
ganza had gone; that break was in what
Is known as the new Texas Landing
levee system, and is very formidable
one, but it is about half mile further
up the river than what is now Hhe great
crevasse of the Point Coupee front.
The crevasse in this new Morganza is
now about 800 feet wide, about twen-
ty-six feet deep, carrying inland over
This upper break, which was the first of
the big ones, is about 700 feet wide and
fourteen feet deep. This break Is right
in the path of the great MOrganza Gre
vase that has now become feature of
state history, and the batture between it
and the natural bank of the river dis
tinctly shows the path of the destructive
food at that time.
The timber on the batture was do
stroyed or swept away, and in the years
that have intervened the growth of
young trees in its channel has been light
and scattering. The vast volume of
water nears the break in smooth, shin
ing torrent that swells in the center, as
If gathering force for its mad plunge.
There is hardly ripple to break its
boiling, eddying surface, but just as it
sweeps into the jaws of the break it
culls on either side in huge breakers,
which mark the line where it has chafed
the crumbling ends of the levee, even
after it has made its first wild leap on
its errand of devastation. Once beyond
the broken barriers it plunges into a
wild, lonesome-looking swamp that still
shows the tracks of the former disasters.
THE OVERLOOKED DISTRICTS.
Nifteen Hundred People Taken Away