Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/86

82 swamp here given, the water growth in the foreground and the dead trunks of the old trees are in contrast to the dense growth of new timber winch is gradually reclaiming the swamp (Fig. 4).

Reelfoot Lake, the most noted single feature resulting from the earthquake, is a shallow body of water between the Mississippi river and the Chickasaw Bluffs in western Tennessee. It has a length of about twenty-five miles, a width of about five miles, and a depth of twenty-five feet or more. Previous to the earthquake, it is said, no lake existed, the lands being of the ordinary type of fertile bottoms

characteristic of the Mississippi, and had early been granted by the Spanish to certain favored individuals. Through the land ran Reelfoot Creek, a little stream rising in the highlands on the east.

After the earthquake all was changed. A warping of the surface occurred across the course of the little Reelfoot Creek, the channel in the lower portion being lifted above its old level so water no longer flowed through it. while the upper part sank and was soon covered by the waters that collected behind the barrier. The old channel can still be traced by soundings across the lake and the landmarks bounding the early grants made out beneath the waters, while to the south the nearly dry bed of the unlifted creek may be traced to the Mississippi (Fig. 5).