OCR Text |
Show Record are invariable on the inside bend of the river; but when the river starts to go down the summer rains begin and out under the bars. The high water cleans the river and after that the summer floods come along and fill the channel again. I never gained a knowledge of the river that enabled me to follow the channel at a crossing where there is no channel. In response to questions propounded by the Special Master Mr. Loper testified: 2366 Even at points where the river crosses there is some places in it deeper than others and we invariably go out and try to find that deeper place but can't follow it. I suppose you would call that deeper place the channel. What I intend to testify is that from year to year you cannot tell in advance where that deeper 2367 place is. Of course I am probably wrong in saying that there is no channel there. In response to a question by the attorney for complainant the witness says that he cannot tell where the channel is from week to week or from day to day. In response to interrogatories propounded by the Special Master, Mr. Loper testified as follows: Each year the high water will deposit sand on the inside of the curve; then as the water falls or as the rains come, that bank will be washed away or undermined to a certain extent, and the sand will be taken and distributed somewhere further down the river. That condition can be relied upon to occur each year. One 2368 coming down the river at a stage other than high water would be warned to look out beyond those curves for the condition that I have described. All the years that I have spent on the river I have never learned where to go over the crossing; " that is, there is places there, we will say there is places through that crossing that is two feet deep, but I can't find it until I run on to the bar and get out and wade around". We know that at a crossing we are going to encounter those very things. In other |