442 



CURVES OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 



[Ch. XIX. 



miles from the mouth 



per 



mile for the second hundred 2 inches, for the third 



2-30 for the fourth 2-57. Messrs. Humpl 



and Abbot 



4£ inches as the 



give about 



Memphis to the mouth 



average fall per mile from 



Mississ 



width below Cape Girardeau, 50 miles above the junction of 



the Ohio. 



mi 



Mempl 



suffers various contractions and expansions until it 



again to 80 miles at the mouth of the White 



then 



reaches the head of the delta, or the point where the 



Mississippi sends off its highest branch or arm, called the 



N 



Atchafalaya. The delta has a diameter trom 



of about 200 miles, and a breadth in the opposite direction of 



about 140. It comprises, according to the survey of 1860, an 



miles 



>/ 



— The river traverses the plain in 



a meandering course, 



describing immense curves. 



After 



sweeping round the half of a circle, it is carried in a rapid 

 current diagonally across the ordinary direction of its 

 channel, to another curve of similar shape. Opposite to 

 each of these, there is always a sand-bar, answering, in the 

 convexity of its form, to the concavity of ' the bend/ as it is 

 called."* The river, by continually wearing these curves 



manner 



some 



for twenty-five or thirty miles, is brought round again to 



mile 



When 



waters approach so near to each other, it sometimes happens 

 at high floods that they burst through the small tongue of 

 land, and insulate a portion, rushing through what is called 

 the ' cut off/ so that vessels may pass from one point to 



another in half a mile to a distance which it previously 

 required a voyage of more than twenty miles to reach. As 

 soon as the river has excavated the new passage, bars of sand. 

 and mud are formed at the two points of junction with the 

 old bend, which is soon entirely separated from the mam 



* Flint's G-cog. vol. i. p. 152. 





it- 



& 



id 1| 







If 



iiaft 



tt 



from 

 lafr 



HI 



r 



ea 





to 



3 



to 



much 

 of tt 



Turn." 



bj & 



are mi 



D 



the 



al ig 

 valley 



fig. 



5 



'■in 



fa 





<S 



V 



i 



