Four Months in a Sneak-Box: A Boat Voyage of 2600 Miles Down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and Along the Gulf of MexicoBishop, Nathaniel H. (Nathaniel Holmes)
General
Four Months in a Sneak-Box: A Boat Voyage of 2600 Miles Down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and Along the Gulf of Mexico
Bishop, Nathaniel H. (Nathaniel Holmes)
Boats and boating; Mississippi River -- Description and travel; Ohio River -- Description and travel
But the New Orleans of to-day is not like any of these we have seen.
The Crescent City has passed beyond the knowledge of even Jackson
himself, and most startled would the old general be could he now walk
its busy streets. Rising steadily, though slowly, from the effects of
the civil war, her position as a port insures a glorious future. Much,
of course, depends upon the success of Captain Eads in keeping open a
deep channel from the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Gulf of
Mexico. This great river deposits a large amount of alluvium at its
North-east, South-east, South, and South-west Passes, which are the
principal mouths of the Mississippi. When the light alluvium held in
suspension in the fresh water of the river meets the denser briny
water of the Gulf, it is precipitated to the bottom, and builds up a
shoal, or bar, upon which vessels drawing sixteen feet of water, in
the deepest channel, frequently stick fast for weeks at a time. In
consequence of these bars, so frequently forming, deep sea-going
vessels run the risk of most unprofitable delay in ascending the river
to New Orleans.
Captain Eads, the projector of the great St. Louis bridge, which cost
some seven or more millions of dollars, has succeeded, by narrowing
and confining the river's current at the South Pass by means of
artificial jetties, in scouring out the channel from a depth of about
seven feet to one of more than twenty feet. Thus the most shoal pass
has already become the deepest entrance to the Mississippi. If the
results of Captain Eads's most wonderful success can be maintained,
New Orleans will be able to support a fleet of European steamers,
while the cereals and cotton of the river basins tributary to New
Orleans will be exported from that city directly to Europe, instead of
being subjected to a costly transportation by rail across the country
to New York, Baltimore, and other Atlantic ports. Limited space
forbids my presenting figures to support the theories of the people of
New Orleans, but they are of the most interesting nature. A few words
from an intelligent Kentuckian will express the views of many of the
people of that state in regard to the system of transportation. He
says:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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