w Orleans, it is sold for
"lumber," and taken to pieces. In short, by this arrangement timber and
produce are brought to market at the same time, the "stuff" of which
the float is composed being but little injured. One cannot look at
these temporary structures without being impressed with the vast
importance of those water-powers which the Americans, with a wonderful
tact, bring to bear in the way of saw-mills on the exhaustless
resources of the forest. The very first thing looked for in settling a
new district is water-power.

These flats, though destined for but a single voyage, sometimes do not
reach their port,--seldom without more or less of danger,--and never
without infinite toil' They usually carry but three or four hands.
Their form and gravity render them very unmanageable. Lying flat and
dead in the water, with square timbers below their bottom planks, they
often run on a sandbank with a strong head-way, and bury their timbers
in the soil. To get them afloat again is a great labour. Sometimes they
run upon a "snag," and are instantly swallowed up with all their crew
and all their cargo. Sometimes a steamer runs into one of them, and
produces a catastrophe equally fatal to both. But all the toils, and
dangers, and exposures connected with the long and perilous voyage of a
flat boat, do not appear to the passer-by. As you cut along by the
power of steam, the flat boat seems anything but a place of toil or
care. One of the hands scrapes a violin, while the others dance.
Affectionate greetings, or rude defiances, or trials of wit, or
proffers of love to the girls on shore, or saucy messages pass between
them and the spectators along the bank, or on the steam-boat. Yet,
knowing the dangers to which they were really exposed, the sight of
them often brought to my remembrance an appropriate verse of Dr.
Watts:--

"Your streams were floating me along
Down to the gulf of black despair;
And, whilst I listened to your song,
Your streams had e'en conveyed me there."

These boats, however, do not venture to travel by night; consequently,
at any good landing-place on the Mississippi, you may see towards
evening a large number of them assembled. They have come from regions
thousands of miles apart. They have never met before,--they will
probably never meet again. The fleet of flats covers, perhaps, a
surface of several acres. "Fowls are fluttering over the roofs as
invariable appendages. The piercing note of the cha