THE KANSAS CITY BRIDGE. 25

temporary works. But if the breaking up is caused by rains, it is accompanied
by a sudden rise of several feet, a rapid current, and destructive gorges ; such
was the case in 1867, when the ice broke up, on the 7th of February, with a
sudden, though temporary, rise, and a current of six or seven iniles an hour.

This behavior of the ice is not unlike that on all large rivers, while its
movements are much more violent and destructive in colder climates than that
of Kansas City ; the only danger to be apprehended: comes from the first five
or ten miles of ice, as the rapid current and crooked channel soon break the
larger fields into cakes too small to do much damage. The phenomena of the
shifting channel and variable bottom were, on the other hand, in a large meas-
ure peculiar to the Missouri, and the difficulties which they must cause under
the most favorable circumstances, were augmented by the imperfect under-
standing of them which existed; they had been made subjects of common
report rather than of accurate observation ; they were well known to old settlers
and to river pilots, but the Government Surveys, to which we are indebted for
our best information concerning the Misissippi and its other tributaries, had not
been extended to the Missouri. The isolated character of the location, nearly
three hundred miles from any general markets or machine shops, and a very
much greater distance from the manufacturing centres of the country, was an
additional source of trouble, involving the construction of an equipment which
could elsewhere be bought or hired in a few hours, and causing occasional
inconvenience by delays in the arrivals of material ordered from a great dis-
tance. * |

As Kansas City is situated immediately below the mouth of the Kaw, the
Missouri is there affected by all the floods of the upper rivers, the Platte, and
the Kaw, but free from those of the Osage and the lesser tributaries below.
The distance between the bluffs is here about two miles, but the course of the
channel is somewhat complicated by changes in their direction ; the eastern
bluff curves from its nearly north and south course to one bearing east and
west; that which is the west bluff of the Missouri, a few miles above, becomes
here the north bluff of the Kaw, leaving a considerable bottom land west of the
city ; east of the town the southern bluff follows a tolerably regular course.

The channel has continued for an indefinite time at the foot of the bluff, in front
4