uld properly belong
to the entire river from St. Louis to the Gulf, as that stream carries
down many thousand tons of mud every year. During the many centuries
that the Mississippi has been sweeping on its course, it has formed
that long point of land known as the Delta, and shallowed the water in
the Gulf of Mexico for more than two hundred miles.

Flowing from north to south, the river passes through all the
varieties of climate. The furs from the Rocky Mountains and the
cereals of Wisconsin and Minnesota are carried on its bosom to the
great city which stands in the midst of orange groves and inhales
the fragrance of the magnolia. From January to June the floods of
its tributaries follow in regular succession, as the opening spring
loosens the snows that line their banks.

The events of the war have made the Mississippi historic, and
familiarized the public with some of its peculiarities. Its tortuosity
is well known. The great bend opposite Vicksburg will be long
remembered by thousands who have never seen it. This bend is eclipsed
by many others. At "Terrapin Neck" the river flows twenty-one
miles, and gains only three hundred yards. At "Raccourci Bend" was
a peninsula twenty-eight miles around and only half a mile across.
Several years ago a "cut-off" was made across this peninsula, for the
purpose of shortening the course of the river. A small ditch was cut,
and opened when the flood was highest.

An old steamboat-man once told me that he passed the upper end of this
ditch just as the water was let in. Four hours later, as he passed the
lower end, an immense torrent was rushing through the channel, and the
tall trees were falling like stalks of grain before a sickle.

Within a week the new channel became the regular route for steamboats.

Similar "cut-offs" have been made at various points along the river,
some of them by artificial aid, and others entirely by the action of
the water. The channel of the Mississippi is the dividing line of
the States between which it flows, and the action of the river often
changes the location of real estate. There is sometimes a material
difference in the laws of States that lie opposite each other.
The transfer of property on account of a change in the channel
occasionally makes serious work with titles.

I once heard of a case where the heirs to an estate lost their title,
in consequence of the property being transferred from Mississippi to
Louisiana, by reason of the c