ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY 



TYPICAL OZARK UPLAND SCENE W. W. Rathbone— Photo. 



Golconda nestling in a deep valley at the mouth of a tributary of the Ohio 

 and spreading out onto the adjoining hills from whose bluffs the view 

 of the main river is unsurpassed. Not far below, the Cumberland joins 

 it, and the Tennessee at Paducah, forming a stream that rivals the Missis- 

 sippi in size. Such is its magnitude that the great bridge now being built 

 at Metropolis is given by one authority as one of the ten greatest engineer- 

 ing projects of the present decade. 



Bay creek, rising in Pope county, has a fall of three hundred feet dur- 

 ing the first seven miles of its course and is confined within rocky walls. 

 For the other thirty-three miles it drops but a few feet for it has emerged 

 into an old river bed. This river bed is marked by the course of the lower 

 Bay (beginning at the mouth of the Bay creek), extends westward through 

 the swamp to the north of Massac county, and is occupied in its lower 

 course by the present Cache river which joins the Ohio above Cairo. This 

 old river bed could contain the upper Ohio of today and no doubt did 

 once contain it. Its width and high bluffs thruout its length indicate that. 

 Probably the Cumberland and Tennessee have always followed the course 

 of the lower Ohio, but the upper Ohio must surely have remained apart 

 and followed the path nearer the hills through which some of its waters 

 still flow at flood time, thus making of the greater part of Massac county, 

 temporarily, an island. Extensive cypress swamps at one time occupied 

 the connecting lowland between the Bay and the Cache proper at the foot 

 of the Ozark bluffs. Immense drainage ditches and the lumbering in- 

 dustry have turned much of this into rich farm land. It was here that the 

 wild turkey lingered longest and the water fowl stayed in countless num- 

 bers. Here was the haunt of the wood duck and here lingered some ducks 

 throughout the winter. There is evidence indicating that ducks often go 

 from here in the morning to feeding grounds as far as Arkansas and return 

 at nightfall. It must be remembered that on this southern side of the 

 Ozarks, spring comes a month earlier and winter a month later than in the 

 counties farthest north. The ferns in sheltered nooks stay green all winter, 

 the violet sometimes is found in midwinter, and the strawberry ripens for 

 the early Chicago market. 



The Saline river moves sluggishly from west to east across the low- 

 lands of Saline and Gallatin counties, often flowing five miles to go two, 



