64 Miscellaneous Geological Topics, 4^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. 



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, 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 

 remains 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 Arkansaw, mentioned by Major Pike : When the river 

 is low, all the water escapes by infihration 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. Whea 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 Sea, or that of the Mississippi is sheet- 

 ed over with a flooring, 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 



