loess. Extending through the middle of the Yazoo bottoms is a flat ridge, standing above flood level, and this and the banks of the various streams are available for cultivation, being the best cotton lands in the world. The bottom is being steadily reclaimed for plantations. The swamp and marsh area is occupied by cypress trees very valuable as lumber, while the drier lands are covered with cane brakes and rich forests of many species of timber trees.
Hydrography. The principal rivers of the State are the Mississippi, flowing the entire length of the western margin, the Tombigbee, Big Black, and Pearl. The Yazoo River is a distributary of the Mississippi, and the whole area of its bottoms is a mesh of interlacing streams, bayous, and oxbow lakes. About one-half the area of the State drains directly into the Mississippi River. The bottom lands of the Mississippi and other rivers are liable to overflow when the rivers are flooded. To guard against this, levees or artificial banks are built to restrain the rivers. Occasional breaks or ‘crevasses’ occur, causing much damage to the plantations, and in times of exceptional high water whole counties may be flooded. The injury, however, is alleviated by the fact that a layer of rich silt is left over all the bottom by the receding flood. The levees are built by the State partly from a fund derived from a special tax on the land, and partly with moneys derived from the sale of swamp lands set aside for the purpose by the General Government. See Levee, and Mississippi River.
Climate. Mississippi lies in the semi-tropical climatic belt and its climate is strongly influenced by reason of its proximity to the Gulf. The average January temperature is 55° F. in the islands off coast, 50° in the southern part of the mainland, and 40° near the northern boundary. The average July temperatures range from 82° to 80°. The average maximum shade temperature is 100°, while occasional anticyclones of winter bring a minimum temperature of 10° F. to the southern portion, and zero weather reaches below the northern quarter of the State. Such cold weather is, however, very transient. The frost-free growing season lasts seven months in the north and ten months in the south. This is of the very greatest importance to many of the crops, especially cotton. The average annual rainfall for the whole State is over 50 inches. The southern quarter has over 60 inches, this distribution being largely due to the prevailing southwestern winds, and to the influence of the Gulf. The heaviest rains occur in late winter or early spring, when the warm Gulf winds meet the cold north winds, but on the whole the precipitation is quite evenly distributed through the year. There is a slight snowfall as far south as Natchez. The atmosphere is humid at all seasons, the average annual relative humidity being not far from 70 per cent. in the northern half of the State and from 70 per cent. to 75 per cent. in the southern half. The average wind velocity for the whole year is seven miles per hour. The prevailing wind for January is north, while it is south for July. The cyclonic belt lies far to the north, and generally does not touch the State.
Flora. The result of the rather large annual rainfall and of the equable distribution through the year is best seen in the luxuriant forests, largely of deciduous trees. Over 120 species of forest trees are known. There are 15 species of oak, including the live oak. Cypress predominates on the bottom and swamp lands. The long-leafed pine is the chief forest tree of the southern half of the State. Tupelo, sycamore, persimmon, magnolia, holly, cucumber tree, sweet gum, black-walnut, and various species of hickory, elm, and maple are also present.
Geology. The Cumberland Ridge just reaches the northeast corner of the State with its outlying undulations, thus bringing a small outcrop of subcarboniferous rocks into its borders. From this corner as a focus, the younger strata dip away gently to the west and south. Cretaceous beds cover a belt radiating about 25 miles west and 75 miles south of the northeast corner. The four prominent members of the Cretaceous outcrop, in series from the oldest up, are the Coffee, Tombigbee, Rotten Limestone, and Ripley. The total thickness of these beds in the State is 2000 feet. At the close of Cretaceous time there was a deep gulf extending north to Cairo, Ill., which was slowly filled by fluvial and off-shore deposits. These beds are the Eocene and Neocene outcrops, covering the greater part of the State and extending from the Cretaceous on the northeast to the Yazoo bottoms and almost to the Gulf on the south.
Mineral Resources. Clay deposits are found widely distributed in Mississippi, and are utilized to some extent for brick. The total value of clay products in 1901 was $456,473. Marl and phosphatic rock are found extensively in many counties, but are used only locally. Hydraulic limestone and coal are found in Tishomingo County and gypsum in Rankin County, but none of these minerals are worked. Potable waters are found everywhere, except on river bottoms; even in the Rotten Limestone region artesian wells supply good water from the underlying Coffee series. Mineral springs are very numerous and are largely chalybeate. In some localities all the springs and wells are highly mineralized. The bluffs of the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers have many springs, the supply flowing through ocherous earths and pyritous clays, whence it is so strongly charged with iron sulphate as to make its use very deleterious. Many mineral springs are used locally in a medicinal way and a few have become well known resorts, as Ocean Springs, in Jackson County, and Iuka Springs in Tishomingo County.
Fisheries. The fisheries of Mississippi, never important, have decreased in recent years. In 1897, the last year for which statistics were compiled, the total value of the catch reported was $192,294, of which $110,964 represented the value of the oyster fisheries. Shrimp fishing is becoming more important. In the year mentioned 2565 men were engaged in the fishing industry.
Agriculture. The predominant industry in the State is agriculture and it is highly favored both by the nature of the climate and the soil. There is a variety of soil, including the brown loam of the central tableland, the rich, black, calcareous soil of the prairie region, the extremely fertile alluvium of the bottom lands, the sandy loam with a clayey or sandy subsoil, south of the central ridge, and the yellow loam of the northeast. They are all, except the last two, unusually rich. The most desirable region is included
- Vol. XIII.—39.
