Agusan (agus in Visayan means "to flow") in the past was known as the place where a big river was located. This is the great body of water which cuts through the Agusan valley, with hundreds of tributaries and creeks. The tributaries interlace with each other down to the marshes. The Agusan river is used today in trans porting logs from the forests upstream in the absence of roads. Ships come to Butuan Bay, where the Agusan joins the sea, to transport overseas the logs floated down the river. The rest are fed into the sawmills that line the river bank, from the city proper to Magallanes, the barrio on the river''s mouth. Pre-hispanic Malay settlers and the work of Javanese artisans can be found here; during the early days of the American regime a gold idol near one of the Agusan river''s creeks was found. The statuette, some eight inches high and believed to have been made by Javanese miners working in the Butuan gold fields between the years 1350 and 1400, represents Siva, the Hindu god. It is now at the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History. Magsaysay Bridge, one of the city''s imposing structures, is seen faintly in the background. The biggest postwar boom for the people of Agusan was the construction of this bridge across the Agusan river, which before the war had to be crossed by banca. Now the longest single-span bridge in the country, it provides an important link Between Butuan and the towns of Agusan del Norte and Agusan del Sur.