( 155 ) 



A FLOOD. 



Many of our larger streams, such as the Mississippi, the Ohio, the 

 Illinois, the Arkansas and the Red River, exhibit at certain seasons the 

 most extensive overflowings of their waters, to which the name of Jloods 

 is more appropriate than the term freshets, usually applied to the sudden 

 risings of smaller streams. If we consider the vast extent of country 

 through which an inland navigation is afforded by the never-failing sup- 

 ply of water furnished by these wonderful rivers, we cannot suppose them 

 exceeded in magnitude by any other in the known world. It will easily 

 be imagined what a wonderful spectacle must present itself to the eye of 

 the traveller, who for the first time views the enormous mass of waters, 

 collected from the vast central regions of our continent, booming along, 

 turbid and swollen to overflowing, in the broad channels of the Missis- 

 sippi and Ohio, the latter of which has a course of more than a thousand 

 miles, and the former of several thousands. 



To give you some idea of a Booming Flood of these gigantic streams, 

 it is necessary to state the causes which give rise to it. These are, the 

 sudden melting of the snows on the mountains, and heavy rains continued 

 for several weeks. When it happens that, during a severe winter, the 

 Alleghany Mountains have been covered with snow to the depth of seve- 

 ral feet, and the accumulated mass has remained unmelted for a length of 

 time, the materials of a flood are thus prepared. It now and then hap- 

 pens that the winter is hurried off" by a sudden increase of temperature, 

 when the accumulated snows melt away simultaneously over the whole 

 country, and the south-easterly wind which then usually blows, brings 

 along with it a continued fall of heavy rain, which, mingling with the dis- 

 solving snow, deluges the alluvial portions of the western country, filling 

 up the rivulets, ravines, creeks and small rivers. These delivering their 

 waters to the great streams, cause the latter not merely to rise to a sur- 

 prising height, but to overflow their banks, wherever the land is low. On 

 such occasions, the Ohio itself presents a splendid, and at the same time an 

 appalling spectacle ; but when its waters mingle with those of the Missis- 

 sippi, then, kind reader, is the time to view an American flood in all its 

 astonishing magnificence. 



At the foot of the Falls of the Ohio^ the water has been known to rise 



