CHAP. XXIX.] CHARLEVOIX S MAPS. 151 



steamers began to consume so much fuel, for it is now 

 intercepted in large quantities before it gets to New 

 Orleans, and cut into logs for the steamers. 



We were desirous of obtaining accurate informa 

 tion from the pilots respecting the recent advance of 

 land on the Gulf, hoping from such data to calculate 

 the time when the mouths of the river were at New 

 Orleans. But I soon found that materials for such 

 a calculation are not to be procured. 



Dr. Carpenter had brought with him Charlevoix s 

 maps of the river mouths or &quot; passes,&quot; published 112 

 years ago, and referring to the state of things about 

 130 years ago. We were surprised to find how 

 accurately this survey represents, for the most part, 

 the number, shape, and form of the mud-banks and 

 bayous, or channels, as they now exist around the 

 Balize. The pilots, to whom we showed the charts, 

 admitted that one might imagine them to have been 

 constructed last year, were it not that bars had been 

 thrown across the mouths of every bayou, because 

 they are no longer scoured out as they used to be 

 when the principal discharge of the Mississippi was 

 at this point. We then went within a mile of the 

 old Spanish building, called the Magazine, correctly 

 laid down in Charlevoix s map, and now 600 yards 

 nearer the sea than formerly, showing that the mud- 

 banks have given way, or that the salt water has 

 encroached in times when a smaller body of fresh 

 water has been bringing down its sediment to this 

 point. 



The south-west pass is now the principal entrance 

 of the Mississippi, and till lately there was eighteen 



H 4 



