26
Opinion of the Court
alluvial deposits, which at various times over the last 100 years were not sufficient in size or stability to be deemed an island. Some of these alluvial deposits may or may not have gravitated to the disputed area; nonetheless, according to Louisiana, the disputed area was not formed from anything that can be said to be Stack Island but rather was formed by random accretion to the west bank of the river.
The Special Master rejected Louisiana's theory as not supported by the evidence, and we agree. The only evidence that Louisiana presented to support its theory of Stack Island's disappearance is a Mississippi River Commission map dated April 1883. The map was prepared in 1881, with hydrographic data added in an overlay in 1883. Of particular interest is a solid green line labeled as the "present steamboat channel" that runs over a portion of Stack Island as it was drawn in 1881. Louisiana's expert interpreted that green line to mean that Stack Island had disappeared by 1883.
The Special Master questioned the authenticity of the document because testimony suggested that no such map had been published by the Mississippi River Commission and because a different map published by the Commission the same month, April 1883, showed Stack Island in existence. Even if we assume the document's authenticity, however, it does not settle the question, for we agree with the Special Master that boats could have passed close enough to the island without the entire island having disappeared. Louisiana's reading of the document was contradicted, moreover, by the sworn testimony of Stephen Blackwell and two other witnesses given on May 5, 1885, stating that Blackwell and his family had lived on Stack Island continuously from April 2, 1882, to the date of the testimony and were cultivating 20 acres. Furthermore, in November 1883, six months after Stack Island was supposed to have vanished, the Mississippi River Commission, in reporting on its construction of dikes just north of Stack Island, stated that " 'this work showed
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