For instance, as soon as the first crossing, out from St.Louis, was completed, the items would be entered upon the blank, under the appropriate headings, thus-- 'St.Louis.

Nine and a half (feet).

Stern on court-house, head on dead cottonwood above wood-yard, until you raise the first reef, then pull up square.' Then under head of Remarks: 'Go just outside the wrecks; this is important.

New snag just where you straighten down; go above it.' The pilot who deposited that blank in the Cairo box (after adding to it the details of every crossing all the way down from St.Louis) took out and read half a dozen fresh reports (from upward-bound steamers) concerning the river between Cairo and Memphis, posted himself thoroughly, returned them to the box, and went back aboard his boat again so armed against accident that he could not possibly get his boat into trouble without bringing the most ingenious carelessness to his aid.
Imagine the benefits of so admirable a system in a piece of river twelve or thirteen hundred miles long, whose channel was shifting every day! The pilot who had formerly been obliged to put up with seeing a shoal place once or possibly twice a month, had a hundred sharp eyes to watch it for him, now, and bushels of intelligent brains to tell him how to run it.

His information about it was seldom twenty-four hours old.