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.

* * * * *

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, to the glorious position she holds to-day.

The day was celebrated in Berlin by the unveiling of a magnificent monument to the old Emperor.

The statue of William I. shows him seated on horseback, with winged figures representing Victory standing on the pedestal beneath him, and the Goddess of Peace holding the bridle of his horse.

On the base of the pedestal is carved: 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.          William the great,          .
.                                     .
.   German Emperor—­King of Prussia,   .
.                                     .
.            1861-1888.               .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

And on the back: 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.   With gratitude and faithful love,  .
.                                     .
.           The German People.         .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Emperor unveiled the monument in the presence of a great number of German Princes and nobles, all of whom laid wreaths at the foot of the monument.