The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-12-17
A RIVER OF Rn1r1Nn sANn

A river of sand rolls past Kansas
 City The bottom of the Missouri riv-
 CT, from the mountains of the north
 west to where it empties into the Mis-
 sissippi is one rolling, shifting bed of
 sand, ever moving slowly onward to the
 sea.
 If you were to go down in diving suit to the river bottom you would see this sand constantly moving down
 stream, rolling over and over in the current Opposite Kansas City this
 sand that forms the river bed is fifty feet deep in places But it is not al- ways the same depth at. the same place. It is continually shifting exact ly as sandbars shift upon the shores in the treacherous current
 This sand comes from erosion of the mountain rocks. No one knows or can guess how many years ago the sand now drifting past Kansas City was on its long journey from the mountains. It may have been halted upon the way for hundreds or thousands of years.
 The Big Muddy" has a trick of dump ing few million tons of sand by the wayside and of leaving it there for years But the river always claims and takes it again some time.
 It is all a part of the tearing down and building up plan of this mysterious old earth. Eventually the sand will be deposited upon the floor of the Gulf of Mexica, forming asvast plateau that some time, by some great convulsion of nature, will be uplifted from the waves and form fertile continent
 This river of sand has helped to build Kansas City. Wherever you see a bit of concrete or street paving or cement work there is sand from the river in It.
 Along the river front of Kansas City are three hundred and fifty acres of level, drifting sand. The sand is from twenty to fifty feet deep all over the three hundred and fifty acres. There are millions of tons of sand there and every grain of it was pumped from the bottom of the Missouri river.
 There are two boats which work day and night pumping sand upon the land that is being reclaimed from the river From the pump upon the boat the sand and water are forced through a long iron pipe and are discharged upon the land. uIn this way the three hundred and fifty acres have been reclaimed from the river. The land is owned by the Armour-Swift interest I. sis worth thirty thousand dollars an acre now.
 The water of the Missouri river where it flows past Kansas City aver ages twenty feet in depth, and the cur rent is very swift. Anchored one hun dred feet from the shore are the pump boats and sand barges. They have powerful engines and pumps and long steel pipes that are lowered to the bot tom of the river The nozzle of the pipe sinks into the sand and the pump sucks 1t up. The sand that is sold for purposes runs out into a scow. The sand fills the scow, the water ris ing and running over the edges until the scow is full of sand. Then the barge is lowed to the bank, a system of buckets upon an endless belt running up a long crane scops the sand out. carries it up, and dumps 1t in a bile upon shore where wagons can get at it.
 For yearas and years, ay and night. the pumps have been steadily sucking ID sand from the river bottom. But the quantity never lessens, There is always a mass of 1t rolling and drifting slowly onward, and the current quickly fills up the depression made by the pump nozzle.
 Beneath the sand is 8 deposit of
 gumbo" or hard clay, beneath that is a blue shale, and next to that is the bed rock. The piers of the Winner bridge go through from ninety to one hundred and twenty-five feet of sand and soil before they reach bed rock. There is more of each of the piers be- low ground than there is above.-Kan- sas City Star,