"It is a place that seems often unable to make up its mind whether it will be earth or water, and so it compromises," wrote Louisiana historian Harnett T. Kane in The Bayous of Louisiana. “The result is that much of Louisiana belongs to neither element. The line of demarcation is vague and changing. The distinction between degrees of well-soaked ground is academic except to one who steps upon what looks like soil, but finds that it is something else.”