e, Minn., 2,890 1,575
" Springs on the summit of Hauteurs de Terre, 2,896 1,680

The Lower Mississippi presents another feature that should not be
forgotten, and which sets forth a great design. Immense forests of
cottonwood and ash are to be seen growing along its banks. These trees
are of rapid growth, and afford excellent (in fact the best, with the
exception of coal) fuel for steamers. Indeed, they constitute much the
greater portion of wood consumed in river navigation. So suitable is the
rich alluvion of the river banks to the growth of these trees, that in
ten years they attain to a sufficient size for felling. Plantations
lying uncultivated for a single year, in the second present a handsome
young growth of cottonwood. This fact is now very well proven on the
Mississippi; the war has ruined agricultural labor almost entirely. No
apprehensions are ever felt by steamboat men on the subject of fuel; the
supply is inexhaustible and reproducing.

The other woods found upon the river, but not, let it be said, to the
extent of the cottonwood or the ash, are the live and water oak, swamp
dogwood, willow, myrtle, wild pecan, elm, and ash. The cypress tree is
found in extensive forests back from the river in the swamps. This tree
attains an enormous height, and is without branches until attaining the
very top, and then they are short and crooked, presenting a very fine
and sparse foliage. The wood of the cypress is very little used upon the
river, not, perhaps, in consequence of its inferiority of quality, but
the difficulty of access to it.

In conclusion, we cannot withhold a few words upon the singular typical
similarity between the appearance of vegetation upon its banks and the
river itself. Gray forests of cypress, the blended foliage of the oak,
the cottonwood, and the ash, with a charming intermixture of that
beautiful parasitic evergreen, the mistletoe, above Vicksburg, suggest
the blooming grandeur of the stream. Below, the appearance of a new
parasite, the Spanish moss, draping the trees with a cold, hoary-looking
vegetation, casts a melancholy and matured dignity upon the scene. Like
the gray locks of age, it reminds the passer by of centuries gone, when
the red savage in his canoe toiled upon its turbid flood; it recalls the
day of discovery, when De Soto and La Salle sought its mighty torrent in
search of gain, and found death; and now looms before us