action of
air and water longer than any other, and, if not submerged throughout
the whole year, will retain life for an extraordinary period. Lake
Bistineau, as well as Black Lake, Cado Lake, Spanish Lake, Natchitoches
Lake, and many others, have been formed, according to Darby, by the
gradual elevation of the bed of Red River, in which the alluvial
accumulations have been so great as to raise its channel, and cause its
waters, during the flood season, to flow up the mouths of many
tributaries, and to convert parts of their courses into lakes. In the
autumn, when the level of Red River is again depressed, the waters rush
back, and some lakes become grassy meadows, with streams meandering
through them.[362] Thus, there is a periodical flux and reflux between
Red River and some of these basins, which are merely reservoirs,
alternately emptied and filled, like our tide estuaries--with this
difference, that in the one case the land is submerged for several
months continuously, and in the other twice in every twenty-four hours.
It has happened, in several cases, that a raft of timber or a bar has
been thrown by Red River across some of the openings of these channels,
and then the lakes become, like Bistineau, constant repositories of
water. But, even in these cases, their level is liable to annual
elevation and depression, because the flood of the main river, when at
its height, passes over the bar; just as, where sand-hills close the
entrance of an estuary on the Norfolk or Suffolk coast, the sea, during
some high tide or storm, has often breached the barrier and inundated
again the interior.

I am informed by Mr. Featherstonhaugh that the plains of the Red River
and the Arkansas are so low and flat, that whenever the Mississippi
rises thirty feet above its ordinary level, those great tributaries are
made to flow back, and inundate a region of vast extent. Both the
streams alluded to contain red sediment, derived from the decomposition
of red porphyry; and since 1833, when there was a great inundation in
the Arkansas, an immense swamp has been formed near the Mammelle
mountain, comprising 30,000 acres, with here and there large lagoons,
where the old bed of the river was situated; in which innumerable trees,
for the most part dead, are seen standing, of cypress, cotton-wood, or
poplar, the triple-thorned acacia, and others, which are of great size.
Their trunks appear as if painted red for about fifteen feet from the
groun