The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1900-01-13

THE MISSISSIPPI RUNS UPHILL.
Drought Has Made the River Salt
Water Stream.
A New Orleans letter TO the New York
| Sun says In consequence OF the prolonged
| drought and a deficiency of more than one
half in the rainfall for the past year the Mis-
| sissippi River has changed its course, is now
running upstream to St. Louis and has become
a salt water stream. This has occurred be-
fore, but very rarely, and has never been quite
as bad as it is now. The tide is felt plainly
at New Orleans, and even as far north as the
mouth of the Red River, $50 miles from the
Passes The water is so brackish in front of
the city that it is not palatable or available
for the many purposes in which it is ordinarily
used.
The primary cause is the drought. The
lower Mississippi, like the Nile, has very few
tributaries pouring into it, the policy of the
early settlers being to cut off the tributaries
by bikes built across the mouths where they
Join the great river. As a consequence, the
river depends largely upon the flood above
and upon the rainfall along its course. If the
rainfall is small the water poured in it by the
Ohio. Missouri and upper Mississippi becomes
largely exhausted by evaporation in the long
trip to the Gulf. The river is always low dur
ing dry season; and this has been the drest
season ON record. Again, the Gulf tides have
been phenomenally high this season, and have
forced the salt water up the river against the
sluggish and weak current The tides have
been supplemented by strong winds, which
have blown the salt water up several feet.
When it is further recalled that the Mississippi
is less than two feet above ocean tide level at
New Orleans, distance of 10S miles from the
sea, it can readily be seen why the river has
become an estuary of the Gulf and is salty,
or, rather, brackish.
This has had several remarkable effects.
The first is on the water supply of the city.
That is about equally divided between rain
water, preserved in overhead cisterns, and
river water. The rain water supply is short
and of poor quality because of the prolonged
drouth; and the river water, containing per
ceptible amount of salt, is not drinkable.
The result has been to bring about a yery con-
siderable boom in spring or distilled water.
New Orleans now imports millions of gallons
of water from springs in neighboring parishes
in Louisiana and Mississippi-not mineral
water, but plain, ordinary drinking water, as
many people prefer it 10 the rain or river
water The artificial ice factories, which dis
| till the water they use in the manufacture of
ice, in order TO secure its purity, find it profit
able to manufacture and sell distilled water to
the trade at from to 6 cents gallon. New
| Orleans is becoming epicure in the matter
of water, and is abandoning, unhealthy, the
water upon which it depended for two centu-
! rie'.
The low water in the Mississippi has seem
| inglv interfered with navigation, and only
vessels of the lightest draught can now go any
distance up the river. The larger st. Louis
steamers have been unable to leave that city
since September; aud the Hill City, which re-
Gently made the down trip, was able to do so
| only because of light draught and by sending
her pilot ahead in a yawl TO sound every foot
of the river from st. Louis to Cairo, TO feel
| the way, as it were, and take advantage of
every deep hole in the channel. At Vicks-
burg all previous records of low water have
been broken; and at Ford's crossing, just be-
low Natchez, the Mississippi can be forded
from the Louisiana to the Mississippi side of
the river for the first time in lis history.
| The low water, and the brackish condition
of the water has also interfered with river
navigation in another way. The steamboats,
navigating the Mississippi get the water for
their boilers from the river, and that water is
not suitable for the purpose just now; it shows
disposition to foam, because OF the salt In
| it, and it plays havoc with the boilers of high
tension steamers, causing them to scale, seri-
ously injuring them This, however, is of
more frequent occurrence than is popularity
supposed and compels the captains of steamers
to keep careful lookout. The Red River is
| slightly saline, but the Arkansas is the most
troublesome tributary in the matter of water
| for boiler purposes. The upper Arkansas
runs through the great alkali plains OF the In
dian Territory, Kansas and Colorado. When,
therefore, there is freshet in the Arkansas it
pours an immense amount of alkali into the
Mississippi. If that stream is rising while the
Mississippi is low and the other tributaries are
at standstill. the percentage of alkali i'll the
Mississippi above New Orleans is so great that
| it is not safe 10 use it in the boilers, and the
water has TO be distilled Or otherwise purified.
Perhaps the most popular result of this con-
version of the Mississippi from fresh to a
salt water stream is in the change in fishing it
! affords. The Mississippi, under ordinary cir
cumstances, is one of the worst streams in the
world for fishing, and contains scarcely an
edible fish-it is too muddy for them. Mis-
sissippi cat--a large fish growing to six or
seven feet and weighing often as much as $50
to $50 pounds-is coarse, and is eaten only
by the negroes. Buffalo fish and mud fish are
even worse-they taste like concentrated ex-
tract of river mud. But with the advent OF
salt water, and the disappearance OF the mud,
the Mississippi has become great resort for
fishermen, and Izaak Waltons can be seen to-
day, for the first time in years, seated on its
wharves, fishing for salt water fish, and meet.
ing with wonderful success. Reddish and
sheepshead have been caught in great quaint
ties in front of the city and even red snappers
fish that usually calls for fifty or sixty feet
of salt water; and even sharks have crossed
the bar after the food fish and followed them
up the river. Below New Orleans, in Paque
mines parish, even sea crabs have appeared
And the Mississippi has put on marine
aspect, and is quite green instead of its usual
tawny yellow.
How long the present phenomenal condition
of affairs will continue it is impossible to say
The heavy rains that usually fall in December
but which have not come, could, of course,
make radical change, but if they do not, the
January rise, which comes about the end Of
January, during the first thaws will convert
the Mississippi from salt water back to a
fresh water stream.
|