I was watching CSPAN's authors tour this evening when author Jay Feldman spoke of his new release, "When the Mississippi Ran Backwards" [Simon & Schulster, released March 2005]

The title caught my attention which was why I tuned in to watch and was quite surprised to hear him say that as little as eight years ago he had never heard about the four month series of earthquakes along the New Madrid which commenced on December 16, 1811. Though the book was well researched and the technical earthquake information is included in the book, the primary focus of the book was the historical account of what was happening in the area prior to the earthquake series.

Accounts of Lila Roosevelt traveling up and down the Mississippi twice while expecting her children was rather amazing considering conditions at the time as was the story of a murder when two nephews of Benjamin Franklin had a disagreement just prior to the December 1811 earthquake.

But there was a considerable focus on Indian Chief Tecumsah and his dealings with governmental representatives over a piece of land in the area. Upon his departure to Detroit he told the Creek Indians that he arrived in Detroit to expect the area along the Mississippi to crumble. Though the Creek Indians had miscalculated Tecumsah's arrival date in Detroit, they credited him with the prophesy of the event.

Lastly, he did say that the Mississippi river did not actually run backwards, though it would have seemed to be doing so when the local residents were viewing it. Actually what happened was that there was an upthrust of a land mass, which caused the water in the river to be forced northward and just like in a bathtub when you push the water away from you, the water came back in the direction to which it normally flowed, with a 30' high wall of water. Therefore, while the 8.0 earthquake was shaking everything to the ground, the water mass coming back down the river washed boats and fish well inland, creating another kind of disaster at the same time.

I do think it would be a good read inasmuch as historical settings afford one a view of something other than just the technical aspects of what happens during an earthquake. While we today are accustomed to viewing earthquakes in real time and we see the immediate reaction by those affected, we have little ability to understand people in other times who knew nothing about regional earthquakes and how they reacted to such an alarming series of events.

Jay Feldman has an M.A. from UCB and resides in Davis, CA. This is his second book. The first was about the history of baseball. He has also written a few published articles of which one was for Scientific American.

Petra