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to the following causes. It has been imagined, and 

 is, at present believed by some, that the course of the 

 Mississippi, was once through the river Atchafalaya 

 into the bay of that name. By others, that the Mis- 

 sissippi had its course for a time through the river 

 Lafourche. 



If we examine the various turnings and windings 

 of tliis river, from its entrance into the Mississippi 

 Territory, to New Orleans, we shall be ready to ad- 

 mit that it may have run in any, and all directions 

 through the country ; for in that distance, the whole 

 channel or current of the river may be said to run in 

 every possible direction, or in that of every known 

 point of the compass. 



But there are circumstances which lead to the con- 

 clusion that its general course has never varied much 

 from that in which it now runs, since the subsidence of 

 the general deluge ; and moreover that it has never 

 run in the direction, nor through the channel of the 

 Atchafalaya river, or that of Lafourche : and for the 

 following reasons. 



If the Mississippi had ever occupied the channel or 

 bed of the Atchafalaya, for any considerable length of 

 time, we have every reason to believe that it would 

 have filled up Lake Chetimaches (with which and the 

 Atchafalaya there is a communication at present, at 

 the north end, and across which and Lake Palourde 

 that river now runs,) with alluvion. Not only so, but 

 we have still greater reason to believe that Atchafalaya 

 bay, into which the Mississippi river must have dis- 



