84 CROSS-TIMBERS. 



suited to this latitude. On entering this section of the river we find 

 that the borders contract, and the water, for a great portion of the year, 

 washes both banks, at a high stage, carrying away the loose alluvium 

 from one side and depositing it upon the other in such a manner as to 

 produce constant changes in the channel and to render the navigation 

 difficult. This character prevails through the remainder of its course 

 to the Delta of the Mississippi, and throughout this section it is subject 

 to heavy inundations, which often flood the bottoms to such a degree as 

 to produce very serious consequences to the planters, destroying their 

 crops, and, upon subsiding, occasionally leaving a deposite of white sand 

 over the surface, rendering it thenceforth entirely barren and worthless. 



Below the great raft a chain of lakes continues to skirt the river for 

 more than a hundred miles : these are supposed to have been formed in 

 the ancient channels and low grounds of former streams, whose discharge 

 had gradually been obstructed by an embankment formed of the sedi- 

 mentary matter brought down the river from above. 



These lakes are from five to fifty miles in length, from a quarter to 

 three miles wide, and are filled and emptied alternately as the floods in 

 Red river rise and fall : they serve as reservoirs, which in the inunda- 

 tion of the banks of the river receive a great quantity of water, and, as 

 it subsides, empty their contents gradually, thereby tending to impede 

 the rapid discharge of the floods upon the Delta. Like all rivers of 

 great length which drain a large extent of country, Red river is subjected 

 to periodical seasons of high and low water. The floods occur at very 

 uniform epochs, but the quantity and elevation of the water, as well as 

 its continuance at a high stage, vary constantly. 



During the winter the water often remains high for several months, 

 but the heavy rise which has almost invariably been observed during 

 the month of June, often subsides in a very few days. 



The geographical position of the sources of Red river being in latitude 

 34° 42' and longitude 103° *J' 10," and its confluence with the Missis- 

 sippi in latitude about 31° and longitude 91° 50/ it extends over 

 three and a half degrees of latitude and eleven degrees of longitude, 

 The barometrical elevation of its sources above the sea is twenty-four 

 hundred and fifty feet. The estimated distance by the meanderings of 

 the stream from the mouth to Preston, Texas, is sixteen hundred miles, 

 and from this point to the sources of the main branch five hundred 

 more, making the entire length of the river two thousand one hundred 

 miles. 



On emerging from the timbered lands upon Red river into the great 

 plains, we pass through a strip of forest called the Cross-Timbers. 



