Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/280

 220 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI pass into the Mississippi river three miles be- low New Madrid; the bayou is now dry laud."*' Others mention the terrible depression in the river, which was probably due to the up- lift of part of its bed. "" jIore general and much more important, probably so far as Southeast Missouri is con- cerned, were the effects of the earthquake in producing a depression of the surface. Fuller divides the lands which were depressed and which are characterized as sunk lands, into three divisions — the first, those marked by sand-sloughs ; second, those characterized by river swamps, and third, those covered by lakes of standing water. The sand-sloughs are broad, shallow sloughs generally of considerable length, several feet in depth and marked by well defined ridges covered by extruded sand and interspersed with depressions, in which the timber has been killed by standing water. The river swamps include the depressed areas along certain of the streams, the level of which is such that water stands over them for considerable periods but does not cover them so deep as to prevent the growth of timber. They are, therefore, characterized by wet-land timber, most of which is young growth. Often the stumps of characteristic upland varieties of trees killed by the sub- sidence may be seen. The sunk-land lakes are broad, shallow and essentiallj' permanent bodies of water occiu*- ring in depressions of the bottom lands near the ]Iississippi and other streams or along the depressed channels of streams like the St. Francois, t The amoimt of depression caused by the earthquakes varied in different localities from t IT. S. Geological Survey, Bulletin 494, p. 65. two to probably twenty feet. According to Fuller the sunk lands are limited to the flat bottom lands in Mississippi, Little and St. Francois rivers. The testimony of those who were present is that the land where New iIadrid now stands subsided fifteen feet. Lyell, who visited the region in 1846, when the evidences were much clearer than at pres- ent, says: "The largest area affected by the convulsions lies eight or ten miles westward of the Mississippi and inland from the town of New Madrid, in ]Iissouri. It is called the 'sunk country' and is said to extend along the course of the White Water (Little river?) and its tributaries for a distance of between 70 and 80 miles north and south and 30 miles or more east and west. Throughout this area innumerable submerged trees — some standing leafless, others prostrate — are seen, and so great is the extent of the lake and marsh that an active trade in the .skins of muskrats, minks, otters and other wild animals is now carried on there. In March, 1846, I skirted the borders of the simk country nearest to New ]Iadrid, passing along the Bayou St. John and Little Prairie, where dead trees of various kinds — some erect in the water, others fallen and strewed in dense masses over the bottom, in the shallows and near the shore — were conspicuous." (Lyell.) Farther south similar conditions existed. Dillard says: "I have trapped there (in the region of the St. Francois) for thirty years. There is a great deal of siuiken land caused by the earthquake of 1811. There are large trees of walnut, white oak and mulberry, such as grow on high land, which are now seen submerged ten and twenty feet beneath the water. In some of the lakes I have seen cypresses so far beneath the surface that with a canoe I have paddled among the branches."
 * Foster, The Mississippi Valley, p. 9.