Ohio Valley_, length 750 miles, and mean width 261; containing
196,000 square miles.

2. _Mississippi Valley_, above Ohio, including the minor valley of
Illinois, but exclusive of Missouri, 650 miles long, and 277 mean width,
and containing 180,000 square miles.

3. _Lower Valley of the Mississippi_, including White, Arkansas, and Red
river vallies, 1,000 miles long, and 200 wide, containing 200,000 square
miles.

4. _Missouri proper_, including Osage, Kansau, Platte rivers, &c. 1,200
miles long, and 437 wide, containing 523,000 square miles.

"The _Valley of the Ohio_ is better known than any of the others; has
much fertile land, and much that is sterile, or unfit for cultivation,
on account of its unevenness. It is divided into two unequal portions,
by the Ohio river; leaving on the right or northwest side 80,000, and on
the left or southeast side, 116,000 square miles. The eastern part of
this valley is hilly, and rapidly acclivous towards the Appalachian
mountains. Indeed its high hills, as you approach these mountains, are
of a strongly marked mountainous character. Of course the rivers which
flow into the Ohio--the Monongahela, Kenhawa, Licking, Sandy, Kentucky,
Green, Cumberland, and Tennessee--are rapid, and abounding in cataracts
and falls, which, towards their sources, greatly impede navigation. The
western side of this Valley is, also, hilly for a considerable distance
from the Ohio, but towards its western limit, it subsides to a
remarkably level region. So that whilst the eastern line of this Valley
lies along the high table land, on which the Appalachian mountains rest,
and where the rivers of the eastern section of this Valley rise, which
is at least 2,000 miles generally above the ocean level; the western
line has not an elevation of much more than half of that amount on the
north, and which greatly subsides towards the Kaskaskia. The rivers of
the western section are Beaver, Muskingum, Hockhocking, Scioto, Miami,
and Wabash. Along the Ohio, on each side, are high hills, often
intersected with deep ravines, and sometimes openings of considerable
extent, and well known by the appellation of "Ohio hills." Towards the
mouth of the Ohio, these hills almost wholly disappear, and extensive
level bottoms, covered with heavy forests of oak, sycamore, elm, poplar,
and cotton wood, stretch along each side of the river. On the lower
section of the river, the water, at the time of the spring floods,
often overfl