In our day, if you travel by
river from the southernmost of these three cut-offs to the northernmost,
you go only seventy miles. To do the same thing a hundred and seventy-
six years ago, one had to go a hundred and fifty-eight miles! -
shortening of eighty-eight miles in that trifling distance. At some
forgotten time in the past, cut-offs were made above Vidalia, Louisiana;
at island 92; at island 84; and at Hale's Point. These shortened the
river, in the aggregate, seventy-seven miles.
Since my own day on the Mississippi, cut-offs have been made at
Hurricane Island; at island 100; at Napoleon, Arkansas; at Walnut Bend;
and at Council Bend. These shortened the river, in the aggregate,
sixty-seven miles. In my own time a cut-off was made at American Bend,
which shortened the river ten miles or more.
Therefore, the Mississippi between Cairo and New Orleans was twelve
hundred and fifteen miles long one hundred and seventy-six years ago. It
was eleven hundred and eighty after the cut-off of 1722. It was one
thousand and forty after the American Bend cut-off. It has lost sixty-
seven miles since. Consequently its length is only nine hundred and
seventy-three miles at present.
Now, if I wanted to be one of those ponderous scientific people, and
'let on' to prove what had occurred in the remote past by what had
occurred in a given time in the recent past, or what will occur in the
far future by what has occurred in late years, what an opportunity is
here!
