90 A RAFT PILOT'S LOG 



dition to these wing dams, many miles of shore protec- 

 tion work has been done to keep the banks from caving 

 and falling in. 



This work is done by first clearing the bank of trees 

 and stumps, grading it down to a thirty degree slope, 

 and then covering it with long, wide mattresses of wil- 

 lows, loaded down and held in place by a layer of eight 

 to twelve inches of broken rock. 



Now, boats are running close along a rocky shore, or 

 past the ends of these hundreds of jetties. In many 

 places, where they leave a channel only four hundred 

 feet wide, safe navigation at night demands a thorough 

 knowledge of the river, skill in steering and handling a 

 boat, and a good searchlight to pick up the buoys that 

 mark the ends of the most dangerous of the dams. 



The improvement has given us a narrow, crooked, 

 rocklined channel, deep enough for practical naviga- 

 tion through the low water season, but dangerous and 

 difficult to run at all times. 



When I began, there were no rocks in the river from 

 Clinton, Iowa, to Saint Paul, and, in fair or good stages 

 of water, the pilot followed up a shore until he came to 

 a certain mark, a high-topped tree, a break in the tim- 

 ber, or the mouth of a slough or foot of an island, from 

 where he would cross over to some object on the other 

 shore, and so on, often following up one shore for many 

 miles. 



Nowadays, however, the pilot has his boat out in the 

 middle of the stream finding his way between a lot of 

 dams, covered with water, which flows over them thus 

 hiding them, but not being deep enough to carry the 

 boat over without sticking. 



Had this improvement work not been done (even 

 though much of it poorly carried out) there would 



