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Ch. XIX.] 



EAFTS. 



445 



rivers of this part of America is the frequent accumulation 



of what are termed ' rafts,' or masses 



of floating 



trees, 



which have been arrested in their progress by snags, islands, 

 shoals, or other obstructions, and made to accumulate, so as 

 to form natural bridges reaching entirely across the stream. 

 One of the largest of these was called the raft of the Atcha- 

 falaya, an arm of the Mississippi, which branches off a short 

 distance below its junction with the Red Eiver. The Atcha- 

 falaya being in a direct line with the general direction of the 

 Mississippi, catches a large portion of the timber annually 

 brought down from the north ; and the drift trees collected 

 in about thirty-eight years previous to 1816 formed a con- 

 tinuous raft, no less than ten miles in length, 220 yards w T ide, 

 and eight feet deep. The whole rose and fell with the 

 water, yet was covered with green bushes and trees, and its 



by a variety of beautiful 

 flowers. It went on increasing till about 1835, when some 

 of the trees upon it had grown to the height of about sixty 

 feet. Steps were then taken by the State of Louisiana to 

 clear away the whole raft and open the navigation, which 



autumn 



four 



years 



The rafts on Red River are 



some 



parts of its course, cedar trees are heaped up by themselves, 

 and in other places pines. On the rise of the waters in 

 summer hundreds of these are seen. 



some 



leaves still upon them, just as they have fallen from a neigh- 

 bouring bank, others leafless, broken and worn in their 

 passage from a far distant tributary : wherever they accumu- 

 late on the edge of a sand bar they arrest the current and 

 soon become covered with sediment. On this mud the young 

 willows and the poplars called cotton-wood spring up, their 

 boughs still farther retarding the stream, and as the inunda- 

 tion rises, accelerating the deposition of new soil. The bank 

 continuing to enlarge, the channel at length becomes so 

 narrow that a single long tree may reach from side to side, 

 and the remaining space is then soon choked up by a 

 quantity of other timber which has become waterlogged and 



has sunk to the bottom. 



Messrs. Humpl 



PS 



