WATERS OF NEBRASKA. 57 



it below down to the gulf. Forming the eastern border of the 

 State, and a small extent of its northern boundary, and being tor- 

 tuous in its path, at least five hundred miles of the river are on its 

 western and southern side in Nebraska. It is deep and rapid. Its 

 bed is moving sand, mud and alluvium. It no where in Nebras- 

 ka has rock bottom. Before rock can be reached a thickness of 

 from forty to one hundred feet of sand and mud must be penetrated 

 from low watermark. Its immediate banks, sometimes on both, 

 and almost always on one side, are steep — often, indeed, perpen- 

 dicular or leaning over towards the water. It is generally retreating 

 or advancing from, or on to one or other shore. It is the shore from 

 which it is retreating that is sometimes gently sloping, while the 

 one towards which it is advancing is steep. This steepness is produced 

 by the undermining of the banks and the caving in that follows. 

 Near the bottom there is a stratum of sand which being struck by 

 the current is washed out and the bank falls in. Many acres in 

 some places have been carried away in a single season. The prin- 

 cipal part of this "cutting" is done while the river is falling. 

 One of the places, famous in early Nebraska history that the 

 Missouri in this way destroyed, is the town of Omadi, in Dakota 

 County. Almost the entire town site is now in the river. When the 

 river is low and winding through bottoms fringed with, in many 

 places, dark groves of cottonwood and other timber, itis a sad,mel- 

 ancholly, weird stream. When it is "on a big rise," however, and 

 presses forward with tremendous volume and force towards the gulf 

 it becomes surpassingly grand and majestic. It is now full of eddies, 

 and whole trees that have been undermined and have fallen into 

 the river are dragged forward at a fearful velocity. It is never 

 fordable. Boats of various kinds were exclusively used for crossing 

 the river until the advent of the railroad bridge at Omaha. Another is 

 now building by the B. and M. R. R. at Plattsmouth. The water 

 always muddy or full of finely comminuted sand, the currant rapid 

 and full of whirling eddies. It is a dangerous stream to trifle with. 

 Often, indeed, during flood times does the boiling, seething mass of 

 water look as if it had been stirred up at bottom with the sand by 

 some mighty convulsive movement of the earth. Few that fall 

 into it ever reach the shore alive without assistance. The clothes 

 are soon saturated with the sediment of the river which is always 

 turbid or muddy, and sinks the victim to the bottom. So well 

 understood, however, is this feature of the Missouri that no more 



