. The continent we live on. Physical geography; Natural history. The delta of the Mississippi forms a natural ecological unit with very precise boundaries. (This is not the area that Mississippi valley folk call "the Delta," by which they mean the bottomlands between the middle Mississippi and the Yazoo rivers.) In some respects it is a southward extension of the bottomlands of the Mississippi valley, with which it is connected on the north via the narrow Atchafalaya Basin (between Natchez and Baton Rouge). Whereas vegetation tends to grow in a parklike manner on the limited drier ar
. The continent we live on. Physical geography; Natural history. The delta of the Mississippi forms a natural ecological unit with very precise boundaries. (This is not the area that Mississippi valley folk call "the Delta," by which they mean the bottomlands between the middle Mississippi and the Yazoo rivers.) In some respects it is a southward extension of the bottomlands of the Mississippi valley, with which it is connected on the north via the narrow Atchafalaya Basin (between Natchez and Baton Rouge). Whereas vegetation tends to grow in a parklike manner on the limited drier areas in that basin, it does not do so in the delta itself. In fact, the latter lies south of and outside the Park Belt and is thus within the Prairie Belt; and. as the land has dried out on the inland side, open grassfields have come into existence there. The verges of waterways are lined with gallery forest, and the extensive swamps are for the most part covered with a closed-canopy swamp forest. The extensive open marshes bordering the coast are saline. This small area, only 18,000 square miles in extent, is thus a natural province. It forms a triangle 300 miles wide at the base on the coast, about 100 miles deep at the apex, with northwestern and northeastern sides of some 150 miles in length. To the west it ends abruptly at the estuary of the Sabine River, beyond which an entirely different kind of coastal prairie begins. To the east it runs into the sea in the form of a 100-mile-long peninsula lying almost parallel to the coast and ending in a very strange topographical feature—a bird-foot-shaped minor peninsula through the "leg" and "toes" of which the Mississippi finds its way to the sea. North and east of this peninsula the coast breaks up into hundreds of islands. The "leg" is 50 miles long, and one of the "toes" is 21 miles long: it is estimated the entire structure is growing at the rate of between 300 and 600 yards per year.
Size: 1557px × 1605px
Photo credit: © The Book Worm / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booksubjectphysicalg
