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Show ! imnzjt. - I GEOGRAPHICAL PECULIARITIES I ijM --.By FREDERIC J. HASKIN I Some vcars ago a topographer was sent ont from Washington to mako n survey of what, was tlion Pay-no Prairie, Florida, a. bit of laud about; eighty by five, miles in extent. The fiiirvoy was made and the prairio described. Three or four years Inter a now surveying expedition found that this land had been transformed into a body of water, and it was put on the map as Lake Alachua. Tt developed that, this lnkc-prairio lnkc-prairio plays a Dr. .lekyl and Mr. TTydc game with' itsolf, sometimes appearing as one, nnd sometimes as tho other. This freak is explained by the fact, that a stream loses itself In a sink at. the nortliorn part of the prairie, and when this sewer can carry off all the water the region is 'level land. When tho sink cannot drain olT the water, it accumulates until it becomes a lake. Peoplo living near and desiring to "neighbor" with the residents ou the other side of the lako-prairio are driven driv-en to the necessity of Kooning a canoo at the front door and a liorse in the stable to be ready for whatever conditions con-ditions may arise." If a steady rain comes tho "face of the landscape is liable lia-ble lo change any minute. One of the natural curiosities of this country is the Janipshiro Ice Mountain on the banks of North Crook, twenty six miles from Winchester, Virginia. For about a quarter of a mile tho west side of this mountain is covered with loose boulders nnd stones of light, color, the mass extending all the wnj down to iho river. By lifting these stone? on any day in the year, crystals of ico can always be found sccurcty hidden in tho crevices bouoath. The shortest street in the United States is Hague street in New York. It is only long enough to accomodate two houses. 41 The Dismal Swamp is not a swamp at. all, according to tlio usual definition of tho term. It. stands fifteen or twenty twen-ty fcot highor than the surrounding county, and instead of receiving drainage drain-age from rivers, is itsolf a source of supply to various streams, giving thorn the water its spongy soil catches and holds after rains, 'Ihoro is no docay of vegetable matter of any kind, logs and falling leaves being transformed into pent ,by the pure wator. Tho purity pur-ity of tho water causes it to keep indefinitely, in-definitely, and it: was in grent domand in bygono days for tho casks of seagoing sea-going vessels." The climate is said to bo pura and healthful, and on this account ac-count planters in olden times wore anxious anx-ious to hire thoir slaves to lumber con-t con-t tractors working in the swamp, k Tho northern boundary line of Delaware Dela-ware is circular in form.' This has been oxplained by the fact that in colonial days William Ponn wanted enough land along tho western bank of the Delaware river to give him an outlet to the senile sen-ile procured from the Duke of York a release of nil title and claim to Newcastle, New-castle, twelve miles around it, and to the land between this tract and the sea," This survey described a semicircle, semi-circle, aud whon this particular colony became a State it still retained the old circular boundary line. 1. A humorist hns said that 'Mho .Mississippi .Mis-sissippi river is so crooked in places that, a steamer going south has been known to meet itself coming north, give passing signals, and narrowly escape a collision with itself.' Because man has never boon able to mako the Mississippi Mis-sissippi obedient, and content to sta3 in one particular channel, ninny interesting inter-esting geographical situations have arisen. There are iunuiucrablo old channels threading back and forth through tho forests of the lowlands, and whenever there is an overflow, or a particularly heavy freshet, the rivor is quite liable to wander olT down one of these old channels and leavo some snipping point high and dry. The town of Delta used lo .be three miles below Vicksbnrg, but a cutoff changed things so it. is now two milos above that, point. Another little place called Blue's Point, was formerly located in Mississippi, but one spring when times wr-ro dull and the river needed a diversion, it changed its channel and transferred Blue s Point over into Arkansas. If the big river had taken such a twist, between Missouri nnd Illinois beforo the war, it could have removed slaves from one-Stale one-Stale lo another and thus set them free. a Another pastime in which the Mississippi Missis-sippi indulges is island building. A snag in tho river, the wreck of an old boat, or a submerged tree, is all that, is needed for a foundation for tho brush and silt to settle upon. Chicken Island, Isl-and, near Mound City. Arkansas, and just above Memphis, Tennessee, was caused b3 the sinkiug of the Sultana, a union transport, which exploded in midstream while- carrying troops homo from the Civil war. All islands formed in mid-stream are government proport3r. until some squatter takes possession. Should the island build toward tho mainland and connect, it is promptly claimed by the farmer owning the shore, and a crop of lawsuits alwa3s follows. A peculiarity of the Blue mountains of Pennsylvania is that they are divided di-vided b rivers that break through tho walls at intervals of twenty-seven miles. From the Susquehanna to" the Swatara is twenty-seven miles; also from tho Swatara to the Schuylkill, from the Schuylkill to tho Lelngh, from the Lehigh Le-high to the Delaware, and from the Delawaro to tho hollow in New .Icrscv known as Culver's Pond, the intcrvafs are tho same. Tt would bo most difii cult to account, for such a coincidence in tho similarit3 in these distances. 1 - En Lake county, Indiana, there is a strip of land that has caused much worry and expense to the management of the three railroads which cross it. Where the Erie line traverses the strip there has recently appeared a crevice that; refuses to be filled, although hundreds hun-dreds of thousands of tons of gravel have been dumped into it. The depression de-pression continues for twenty feet on .either side of the track, and has entirely en-tirely baffled f the engineering department. depart-ment. This sinking is an annual event, taking place about December of each year The point where it occurs is about eight miles east of Lako Michigan, Michi-gan, near the northern limits of the region of swamp lands. It reaches about fifteen miies north and south. The Indians who 'lived in that locality in the thirties had a legend that in the swamp there was an entrance to the center of tho earth, and laid out their trails so they widely skirted the vicinity vicin-ity of the ni3stcrious sinking land. An old, old vellum document bearing the signatures of their Catholic Maies-t Maies-t ics. Ferdinand and Isabella, and countersigned coun-tersigned by the Vicoro3 of Mexico and Gen, Coronado, has been discovered recently. re-cently. This document proves to historians his-torians that St, Augustine was not the first permanent c i ty in the United States, but that Tucson, Ariz., has that distinction, having been founded in i552. Tt seems that Tucson was a pueblo pu-eblo of some size when the first pillar in the old stockade was sot in the soil at St. Augustine. to Tt is claimed that Washington is the cleanest city in the United States. Jf they were so disposed tho ladies might wear thoir best afternoon gowns on the street without having them soiled. The general cleanliness of Washington is due to the noticeable absence of factories with their soft coal smoke, and the asphalt streets aro kept so clean that there is little dust or dirt in the air. There- arc 175 miles of asphalt as-phalt pavements in the capital city. An almost forgotten fact is that Washington Wash-ington was first called Home, and a creek -which llowed through the site of the city was spoken of as tho Tiber. Oddly enough the first owner of the Innd upon which the capital is now located was named Pope. w Green Lake, Colo., is not onl3 noted as the highest lako in the United States, being 10,252 feet above the level of the sea, hut also for the fact that its water has a peculiar faculty for petrifying substances that arc placed in it. The water of Medicine Lake, in the southern part of the State of Washington, on the Columbia plateau, possesses such unusual qualities that no vegetation over grows on or near its banks. Owen's Lake, in Owen county, California, is so rich in soda ash that 10,000 tons were taken out last 3car, Tho soda is taken from the wator by the process of ovaporation. At Summcrland, Cal n few milos south of Santa Barbara, travelers may see the novol spectacle of nil wells standing out in tho ocean, many of them being several hundred feet from the shore. Although many of these aro now exhausted, Mieyj onco'flowed frooly. The longest double track, steel rail-way rail-way bridgo in tho world is to bo built over tho Columbia river, not far from Portland, Ore. It will bo two miles long. The Columbia was named for the ship ''Columbia Rediviva, " which was the first, vessel to carry tho American flag around the world. When Capt Hobert Gray, of Boston, put in at tho mouth of this great river in 17SS he named it for his ship. Tho French have called it St. Tioquc's rivor. |