64 Miscellaneous Geological Topics, &c. 
nals will be run, intersecting each other at right angles, for every 
two or four miles ; that all the lakes will be filled up, with the accu- — 
mulation of earthy matter, by conducting the water upon them in 
canals, and that all.the immense region of cypress forest, the most 
valuable timber in the world, will be reclaimed and brought within 
the reach of commerce and the arts of life. 3 
PECULIARITIES OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 
The Mississippi, like the Caspian Sea, has its bluffs on the eastern 
side, with its principal vale and lakes to the west. When the river 
is full to the top, all the land and the trees seem to float upon the 
surface. _The water of the river penetrates the soil with astonishing 
facility. This will be seen by observing its level, which is preserved 
throughout the vale... A hasty rise in the Mississippi, i in consequence ~ 
of the want of time, often leaves the water lower in the swamps than 
in the river, by which means, the level is lost; but when the flood 
emains stationary for a short period, the level is, under favorable 
circumstances, recovered. ‘To illustrate the facility with which water 
passes through the earth; we might produce the instance of a sand 
bar across the Prag mentioned by Major Pike: When the river 
is low, all the water escapes by infiltration through the sand. . What is 
improperly called the raft in Red river is another example, in which 
nearly all the water which descends that river, when low, escapes 
through the mud and sand, and along the roots of trees. ‘There is.a 
sand-bar across the Mississippi, below the Ohio river, which, in low — 
water, contains not more than three feet. When we consider that | 
there are a thousand rivers discharging themselves into the Missis- . 
sippi, and that some of them are at least as wide as it,;—shall we say 
that the Mississippi is deep and carries off all the water that pours into 
it; or shall we conclude that, like the Caspian Sea, it is lost by evapo- 
ration? this solution of the difficulty appears to us very absurd. 
The size of the Caspian Sea, presenting such an immense sheet. of 
water to the sun, would of course cause an escape of considerable 
water by such a process ;—but will it account for the waste of the 
waters of all the rivers which run into it?—We shall not believe that 
either the bed of the Caspian Sed, or that of the Mississippi is sheet- 
ed over with a flooring, i impervious as a solid plate of iron. 
__ ‘Subterranean passages, made by incessant infiltration, producing 
small holes or excavations which communicate with the interior of 
the earth, where they meet with subterranean rivers unquestionably 
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