A FLOOD. 159 



the stream, like the grounded arms of an overwhelmed army of giants. 

 Everywhere are heard the lamentations of the farmer and planter, whilst 

 their servants and themselves are busily employed in repairing the 

 damages occasioned by the floods. At one crevasse an old ship or two, 

 dismantled for the purpose, are simk, to obstruct the passage opened by 

 the stiU rushing waters, while new earth is brought to fill up the chasms. 

 The squatter is seen shouldering his rifle, and making his way through 

 the morass, in search of his lost stock, to drive the survivors home, and 

 save the skins of the drowned. New fences have everywhere to be form- 

 ed ; even new houses must be erected, to save which from a like disas- 

 ter, the settler places them on an elevated platform supported by pillars 

 made of the trunks of trees. The lands must be ploughed anew, and if 

 the season is not too far advanced, a crop of corn and potatoes may yet 

 be raised. But the rich prospects of the planter are blasted. The tra^ 

 veUer is impeded in his journey, the creeks and smaller streams having 

 broken up their banks in a degree proportionate to their size. A bank 

 of sand, which seems firm and secure, suddenly gives way beneath the 

 traveller's horse, and the next moment the animal has sunk in the quick- 

 sand, either to the chest in front, or over the crupper behind, leaving its 

 master in a situation not to be envied. 



Unlike the mountain-torrents and small rivers of other parts of the 

 world, the Mississippi rises but slowly during these floods, continuing for 

 several weeks to increase at the rate of about an inch in the day. When 

 at its height, it undergoes little fluctuation for some days, and after this 

 subsides as slowly as it rose. The usual duration of a flood is from four 

 to six weeks, although, on some occasions, it is protracted to two months. 



Every one knows how largely the idea of floods and cataclysms enters 

 into the speculations of the geologist. If the streamlets of the European 

 Continent afford illustrations of the formation of strata, how much more 

 must the Mississippi, with its ever-shifting sand-banks, its crumbling 

 shores, its enormous masses of drift timber, the source of future beds of 

 coal, its extensive and varied alluvial deposits, and its mighty mass of 

 waters rolling sullenly along, like the flood of eternity ! 



