MITIGATION OF FLOODS IN THE HUNTER RIVER. 131 



obliterated, within a few minutes ; always sees the falling- waters accu- 

 mulate as viscid mud torrents of brown or red, while the myriad miniature 

 pinnacles and denies before him are transformed by the beating raindrops 

 and rushing rills so completely that when the sun shines again he may 

 not recognize the nearer landscape. 



" This destruction is not confined to a single field nor to a single region, 

 but extends over much of the upland. While the actual acreage of soil 

 thus destroyed has not been measured, the traveller through the region 

 on horseback daily sees thousands or tens of thousands of formerly fertile 

 acres now barren sands; and it is probably within the truth to estimate 

 that 10% of upland Mississippi has been so far converted into bad lands 

 as to be practically ruined for agriculture under existing commercial 

 conditions, and that the annual loss in real estate exceeds the revenues 

 from all sources. And all this havoc has been wrought within a quarter 

 of a century. The processes, too, are cumulative ; each year's rate of 

 destruction is higher than the last. 



" The transformation of the fertile hills into sand wastes is not the sole 

 injury. The sandy soil is carried into the vallies to bury the fields, 

 invade the roadways and convert the formerly rich bottoms lands into 

 treacherous quick sands when wet, blistering deserts when dry, hundreds 

 of thousands of acres have been destroyed since the gullying of the hills 

 a quarter of a century ago. Moreover, in much of the upland the loss, 

 is not alone that of the soil, i.e., the humus representing the constructive 

 product of water-work and plant work of thousands of years, the mantle 

 of brown loam, most excellent of soil stuffs, is cut through and carried 

 away by corrosion and sapping leaving in its stead the inferior soil stuff 

 of the Lafayette formation. In such cases the destruction is irremediable 

 by human craft — the fine loam once removed can never be restored. The 

 area from which this loam is already gone is appalling, and the rate of 

 loss is increasing in geometric proportion/' 



