The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-10

From Mark Twain's Life on the Mis-
 sissippi."
 TN IRST of all. there is one faculty N which a pilot must necessarily 4 cultivate until he has brought 1t to absolute perfection. Nothing short of perfection will do. That faculty Is mem ory He cannot stop with merely think ing thing is so and so; he must know it; for this is eminentlu ,ne of the lex act sciences. With what scorn a pilot was looked upon in the old times if he ever ventured to deal in that feeble phrase, q think" instead of the vigor- ous one. 'I knowr'
 One cannot easily realize what tre- mendous thing 1t is to know every trivial detail of 1200 miles of river and know 1t with absolute exactness. If you will take the longest street In New York and travel up and down It, coming its features pa tiently until you know every house and window and lamppost and big and little sign by heart, and know them so accu- rately that you can instantly name the one you are abreast of when you are set down at random in that street in the middle of an inky black night, you will then have tolerable notion of the amount and the exactness of pilots knowledge who carries the Mississippi river in his head. And then, If you will go on until you know every street cross ing, the character, size and position of the crossing stones, and the varying depth of mud in each of those numberless places, you will have some idea of what the pilot must know in order to keep Mis- siss,ppi steamer out of trouble. Next, if you will take half of the signs in that long street and change their places once a month and still manage to know their new positions accurately on dark nights and keep up with these repeated changes without making any mistakes, you will understand what is required of pilots peerles memory by the fickle Mississippi.
 I think pilots memory is about the most wonderful thing in the world. To know the Old and New Testaments by heart, and be able to recite them glibly, forward or backward. or begin at ran- dom anywhere in the book and recite both ways and never trip or make mistake, is no extravagant mass of knowledge, and no marvellous facility, compared to a pilots massed knowledge of the Missis- sippi and his marvellous facility in the handling of 1t. I make this comparison deliberately, and believe am not ex- banding the truth when do it.. Many will think my figure too strong. but pilots will not.
 And how easily and comfortably the rilotss memory does its work; how placid ly effortess in its way; how unconscious lv 1t lays up its vast stores, hour by hour, day by day, and never loses or mislays a single valuable package of them all! Take an instance. Let leads man cry, Half twain! half twain! half twain; half twain! half twain; half twain." until it becomes as monotonous as the ticking of clock; let conversation be going on all the time. and the pilot be doing his share of the talking, and no lcnger consciously listening to the leads- man and in the midst of this endless string of half twains let single "quar- ter twain!" be interjected. without em- phasis, and then the half twain cry go on again, just as before; two or three weeks later that pilot can describe Wstn provision the boats position in the river when that quatrer twain was uttered q give you such a lot of head-mar1Ss, sterA marks, and side-marks to guide you that you ought to be able to take the boat there and put her in that same spot again yourself.
 The cry of Quarter twain" did not
 hfo foy hi his trained faculties Instantly photo sraphed the bearings. noted the change or depth, and laid up tho important details for future reference without requiring any assistance from him in the matter. If you ware walking ana talking with friend, aed another friend at your side kept up . monotonous repetition of the