134 STEAMBOAT ACCIDENTS. [CHAP. XXX. 



decay under water), it may readily be conceived how much this 

 formidable source of danger has lessened in the last few years. 

 At the season when the river is lowest, grappling irons are firm 

 ly fixed to these snags, and the whole force of the engines in the 

 snag-boat is exerted to draw them out of the mud ; they are then 

 cut into several pieces, and left to float down the stream, but 

 part of them being water-logged, sink at once to the bottom. 



Several travelers assure me, that serious accidents are not more 

 common now on the Mississippi and its tributaries, when there are 

 800 steamers afloat, than twenty years ago, when the number 

 of steamers was less than fifty. The increased security arises, 

 chiefly, from the greater skill and sobriety of the captains and 

 engineers, who rarely run races as formerly, and who usually cast 

 anchor during fogs and in dark nights. Such precautions have 

 no doubt, become more and more imperative, in proportion as the 

 steamers have multiplied. On the wide Atlantic, the chances of 

 collision in a fog may be slight, but to sail in so narrow a channel 

 as that of a river, at the rate of ten miles an hour, unable to see 

 a ship s length ahead, with the risk of meeting, every moment, 

 other steamers coming down at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, 

 implies such recklessness, that one can not wonder that navigators 

 on the western waters have earned the character of setting small 

 value on their own and others lives. Formerly, the most fre 

 quent cause of explosions was a deficiency of water in the boiler ; 

 one of the great improvements adopted, within the last five years, 

 for preventing this mischief, is the addition of a separate steam- 

 apparatus for pumping up water, and securing a regular supply 

 by machinery, instead of trusting to the constant watchfulness of 

 the engineers. On the whole, it seems to be more dangerous to, 

 travel by land, in a new country, than by river steamers, and 

 some who have survived repeated journeyings in stage-coaches, 

 show us many scars. The judge who escorted my wife to 

 Natchez, informed her that he had been upset no less than thir 

 teen times. 



On the left bank, about sixty miles above New Orleans, stands 

 Jefferson College ; a schoolmaster from the north, speaking to me 

 of its history, imputed its want of success to the insubordination 



