A FIGHT FOR PRIMITIVE RIGHTS. Bv Henrv Burns Geer. IT is gratifying to know, in these latter days of trusts, combines, and other ac credited mercenary institutions that there are men so deeply imbued with the love of nature, and the sports of the primitive or aboriginal man, that they will go the full length of the law to retain what they believe to be their natural rights, as inherited from their forefathers. A lawsuit in defence of this instinct, and these rights — a suit now famous in Western Tennessee and Kentucky, was very recently decided by the Supreme Court of the former State, sitting at Jackson. It is of national interest, because it in volved a body of water different in some respects from that of any other lake or stream in the United States, so far as we have record; being none other than the fa mous " Reelfoot Lake, " a body of water that was born of a great natural convulsion within the period of the white man's occupancy of this country. It lies very close to the Mis sissippi river, and intersects the State line of the two States named above. Nearby, on the western shore of the great river, is the historical village of New Madrid, Missouri. Here, in 1811, occurred the seismic disturb ance known as the " New Madrid earth quake," — a disturbance of terra firma greater than any that has happened since, and probably the greatest since the formation of the continent of North America. The shocks occurred at different intervals for two or three days; there were heavy detonations, and hissing sounds like the escaping of heated vapor, or steam; the earth rocked in wavy undulations and cracked open, leaving great fissures in various places; and, it is recorded that men of well-known veracity asserted
that the current of the river was stationary, if not actually reversed, for several hours. The chief settlements at that time were on the western side at and about New Ma drid, an old Spanish trading post, or fort; and when the hunters and trappers, after the excitement attending the great natural convulsion had subsided, again ventured in to the forests on the eastern shores of the river, and returned to New Madrid with the startling information that the earth over there had sunk and a great lake formed that was from two to five miles wide in places, and about twenty-five miles long, they were scarcely believed. Investigation, however, proved the truth of their assertions, and it was soon known and established as a fact, that " Reelfoot Lake " — child of the great convulsion of mother earth — had been born. In some parts of the lake the great forest trees had entirely disappeared beneath the water; while in other sections their tops still protruded above the waves. When the great river rose to the flood line, during the "June rise," — the season of the annual flood tide — it swept over the newly formed lake, and when the waters of the river receded the lake was thoroughly stocked with a magnificent assortment of fish. And, later, when the frosts of the late au tumn came, the wild geese, brant and ducks of the North came down, and made a winter resort of the latest formation of mother na ture in the Mississippi Valley. And so it has been recurring again and again, for nigh onto a hundred years; until " Reelfoot Lake" has become a name revered by sportsmen both at home and abroad. Modern agencies have been employed to improve the quality of the fish in the great
