THE NEW MADRID EARTHQUAKE 61 



On p. 159 of this same report we read: 



Connected with Sodo Lake by Big Willow Pass is Ferry or Fairy Lake. It 

 differs from Sodo by having hills on both sides; being exactly the same type as 

 Cross Lake, a lake occupying an old stream valley. Ferry Lake is quite shallow, 

 with a narrow line of deeper water winding irregularly through it. This lake 

 is rendered particularly interesting by the large number of cypress and oak stumps 

 standing upright in it, even in the deepest water. 



The same author says further, on p. 185: 



On the recent origin of the lakes in the upper part of the valley there can be 

 little question. A number of planters of Red River bottoms have repeated to me 

 the old Caddo Indian tradition that about 150 years ago the land now occupied 

 by Sodo Lake was an oak ridge, that all the water flowed in a narrow cypress- 

 fringed bayou in the center, and that the filling of the valley was sudden, as if by 

 an earthquake. 



PRIMARY CAUSE OF THE NEW MADRID EARTHQUAKE 



As to the primary cause of the New Madrid earthquake, it is 

 difficult to make any statement. It may have been due to the read- 

 justment of fault lines in the Ozarks, or to a similar cause in the 

 Appalachians. It would seem more likely to have been the former, 

 as the fault scarps in the Ozarks frequently have an appearance 

 that does not betoken great age and, further, slight earthquake 

 shocks, which observers described as coming from the west, have 

 been noticed. 



As to the cause of the great local disturbance in the New Madrid 

 region, there can be no doubt that it was due to the great artesian 

 pressure from below, which slowly undermined, for centuries, the 

 superincumbent beds of clay by the steady removal of the sand 

 through innumerable springs. A slight earthquake wave would destroy 

 the equilibrium of a region thus undermined, resulting in the sink- 

 ing of some areas, and the elevation of others, thus producing such 

 conditions as were described by various observers who witnessed 

 the castrophe of 181 1. 



The escape of gas resulting from decaying organic matter may 

 have had something to do with the certain phenomena of the earth- 

 quake, and would certainly account for the presence of so-called 

 "sulphurous vapors" and gases referred to by so many observers 

 in their accounts of the earthquake. 



