208 THE AMERICAN BEAVER. 



Lands." It is a striking fact with reference to these 

 lands, that they have been literally made by the river 

 to the depth of its channel from bluff to bluff; and 

 that they are still undergoing the process of being cut 

 away and reformed with each successive flood. Al- 

 though the river to-day cuts against one of its bluffs, 

 while the opposite one may be four miles distant, the 

 time has been when it also impinged on the other, — 

 having removed in its course all the intermediate soil 

 to the depth of its channel. As it cuts away on 

 one side, it throws up materials on its receding bed in 

 the form of a sand-bar, which is afterward raised by 

 the slow process of surface deposits by successive 

 floods to the common level of the bottom lands. With 

 every change of level in the river it shifts its channel 

 more or less, as the direction and force of the pressure 

 upon its banks change with the rise and fall of the 

 stream. The rapidity with which this river, when in 

 flood, cuts away its banks, which it is seen are sedi- 

 mentary, is quite remarkable. It is not uncommon 

 for a farmer on the Lower Missouri to lose forty acres 

 of his farm in the bottom lands in a single night. At 

 such times there is a constant splash of earth falling 

 into the river, carrying with it the tallest cottonwood- 

 trees, whose age measured the interval since the river, 

 cutting its way in the opposite direction, had cast up 

 the sand-bar upon which they afterward took root. I 

 have seen trees falling in, one after another, while still 

 others in a leaning position were just ready to follow. 

 The mud deposited on their foliage soon brings them 

 to anchor, after which they are stripped, in course of 

 time, of both limbs and bark; and thus, with one end 

 imbedded in mud and the other rising toward the sur- 



