The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1. No. 23, April 15, 1897 | Page 6

that the fault lies, not in the gun, but with the climate of the West Indies.
The three tubes of this gun (which we described fully in Number 6 of THE GREAT ROUND WORLD) are fastened together at the breech with a clasp which holds the whole mechanism of the gun in place.
The climate of the West Indies is so moist that metal rusts in an amazingly short space of time, and it is difficult to keep anything bright and polished.
It is supposed by those who understand the gun that, having been constantly exposed to the moist air, it has rusted, and that the important clasp has become so rusty that it can no longer be pushed fully home, and so the gun is not secure.
In their opinion the failure of the dynamite-gun has not been proved; it may be necessary to make some alterations to fit it for service in swampy countries, but that as a weapon it is still a success.
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Terrible floods are reported from the Mississippi Valley. A section of the country equal in size to the whole State of Missouri is now under water, and steamboats are hurrying over what were once farm lands, rescuing the unfortunate families who have been caught by the floods.
The Mississippi, the largest river on our continent, flows through what is known as the Gulf Coast Plain.
The Gulf Coast Plain is formed by the valley lying between the great mountain ranges which make the framework of our country.
The Mississippi with its tributaries drains the whole of the enormous tract of land lying between these three main mountain ranges.
This great river forms the highway for the interior of our country, and winds through the plain for about a thousand miles. Every year when the heavy spring rains fall, and the snows melt in the north, the river overflows its bed, and floods the lowlands around it.
To keep the river within its bounds, mounds of earth, called levees, have been built for hundreds of miles along the banks. The Mississippi floods are only dangerous when the thaws are very sudden, or the rains so heavy that the river swells in size to such an extent that the levees are broken down, and the water, bursting its bounds, rushes with an angry flood over the surrounding country, destroying everything in its path.
As a usual thing the spring floods are beneficial to the country, for the Mississippi is a very muddy river, and when it overflows it spreads this mud over the country, in much the same fashion that the Nile does, and with the same result of fertilizing and enriching the soil.
All swift waters wash away some portion of their bed in their flow, and carry it along with them in their journey to the sea.
The Mississippi in its thousand-mile course carries a vast amount of this stolen earth, so much indeed that every year it deposits in the Gulf of Mexico an amount of mud which would make a pile one mile square and 268 feet high.
[Illustration]
This enormous yearly deposit is literally filling up the Gulf, and in the ages to come dry land and a new country will be found where the waters of the Gulf now lie.
Every year the Mississippi brings down enough earth with it to help it move its mouth 338 feet farther out into the sea, and every year it builds on to its delta, which now contains thousands of square miles!
You can understand that the angry flood of such a powerful river as this must be a very serious matter. For a distance of nearly twenty miles in Arkansas, levees have given way, and thousands of acres of land have been flooded; the waters sweeping away the homes, drowning the cattle, and compelling the people to seek the points above the angry waters, and wait in the hope of relief-boats coming to save them.
In other parts of the country through which the river flows, special trains loaded with sacks are being run to points near the river banks. The sacks are filled with earth, and thrown upon the levees to strengthen them. The men of that country are working night and day to shore up the levees until the floods subside.
This is the worst flood that has been known for many years, and people along the banks of the Mississippi have been ruined through the damage done by the waters.
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March 22d was celebrated throughout Germany as a national holiday, for it was on this day one hundred years ago that Emperor William I. was born.
The old Emperor was the man who, with the help of Bismarck, united all the various States and Principalities of Germany under one rule, and raised Germany from the dust into which Napoleon had thrown her,