Page:Life on the Mississippi (IA lifeonmississipptwai).pdf/149



HEN the river is very low, and one's steamboat "drawing all the water " there is in the channel,—or a few inches more, as was often the case in the old times,—one must be painfully circumspect in his piloting. We

"SOUNDING."

used to have to "sound" a number of particularly bad place almost every trip when the river was at a very low stage.