Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-12-08
NEBRASkA'S NEW RIVER
Clear Stream Suddenly Springs
 Out of Sandy Plains.
WORKING ITS WAYT0 THE MISSOURI

Since Late Spring It Has Travelled
 over a Hundred and Fifty Miles. Expected to Transform Short Grass
 Grazing Land Into Farms-Source
 Said to He From Underground
 Rocky Mountain Shed.
 A wonderful geological event has re- gently taken place about Longpine, in the sand hills of Nebraska. A great new river of clear water, rivaling the Niobrara, the Elkhorn and the Platte rivers, has suddenly sprung into exist ence and is even now working its way southeastward to the Missouri river, says special dispatch from Longpine, Neb., to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Already the new river is more than 150 miles long, and its waters are slowly going forward to an outlet to the gulf. In some places New river, as it is call ed, is half a mile wide, while in others 1t is only a few rods. Its depth varies from few feet to fifty feet.
 The water by which the stream is fed is supposed to come from the great underground flow of water from the Rocky mountains eastward to the Mis- souri. The phenomenon has attracted a great deal of attention from scientific men in the state, and the University of Nebraska Is preparing to make thor ough and exhaustive search into the reasons which led the underground stream to burst forth.
 New river takes it's rise in the east ern part of Cherry county and flows toward the southeast, passing through Brown, Rock, Holt and portions of Wheeler and Antelope counties. At present it has reached point in north western Boone county and is slowly creeping eastward toward the Missouri river.
 The country New river travels is mostly sand hills"-a range of sand dunes extending from South Dakota clear across Nebraska and covered with scant vegetation in the shape of sage brush and buffalo grass. There are no springs or streams in the sand hills, but flowing artesian wells of first class clear water can be secured at any point in the hills at depth of from fifteen to fifty feet.
 Geologlcally there is a strong dip in the strata from the Rockies to the Mis- souri river, and below this strata it has long been known that there was strong and heavy flow of water. This | strata seems to have given way in many places, due to some underground convulsion, and the water beneath has been permitted to gush out.
 Between the sand dunes there are small valleys, and down these the river is taking it's course. Each valley or de- pression must be filled to overf1owing before the stream can go onward. And once over the rim of one of these de- pressions (which are from ten to fifty feet deep) the next valley is attacked and filled by the water before the ! stream enters the next one. The front of the river is travelling at a rate of three or four miles each day and was recently 150 miles long and about forty days old.
 Very little rain falls in the sand hills except during the spring, and the cat ] tie which roam over the hills must be driven far to water unless there hap ! pens to be an artesian well near by. It is the great cattle range of Nebraska. So when James Wilson, one of the great cattle kings of Cherry county, made the discovery last summer that the spring rains had almost filled a deep depression on the range where bis cattle roamed he saw prospects of fresh water all the summer and fall. The depression was deeper than any other on the range.
 But the next week, when Wilson again rode on to the range, he noticed that there was more water in the pool than had been there the week previous. When next he saw the miniature lake 1t had overfowed the original depres- sion and. in addition. had filled several