ws slowly onwards to the south. Sometimes quietly gliding
along the argillaceous bed which nature has assigned to it, sometimes
swollen by storms, the Mississippi waters 2,500 miles in its course.
*c At the distance of 1,364 miles from its mouth this river attains an
average depth of fifteen feet; and it is navigated by vessels of
300 tons burden for a course of nearly 500 miles. Fifty-seven large
navigable rivers contribute to swell the waters of the Mississippi;
amongst others, the Missouri, which traverses a space of 2,500 miles;
the Arkansas of 1,300 miles, the Red River 1,000 miles, four whose
course is from 800 to 1,000 miles in length, viz., the Illinois, the
St. Peter's, the St. Francis, and the Moingona; besides a countless
multitude of rivulets which unite from all parts their tributary
streams.

[Footnote b: The Red River.]

[Footnote c: Warden's "Description of the United States."]

The valley which is watered by the Mississippi seems formed to be the
bed of this mighty river, which, like a god of antiquity, dispenses both
good and evil in its course. On the shores of the stream nature displays
an inexhaustible fertility; in proportion as you recede from its banks,
the powers of vegetation languish, the soil becomes poor, and the plants
that survive have a sickly growth. Nowhere have the great convulsions
of the globe left more evident traces than in the valley of the
Mississippi; the whole aspect of the country shows the powerful effects
of water, both by its fertility and by its barrenness. The waters of
the primeval ocean accumulated enormous beds of vegetable mould in the
valley, which they levelled as they retired. Upon the right shore of the
river are seen immense plains, as smooth as if the husbandman had
passed over them with his roller. As you approach the mountains the soil
becomes more and more unequal and sterile; the ground is, as it were,
pierced in a thousand places by primitive rocks, which appear like the
bones of a skeleton whose flesh is partly consumed. The surface of the
earth is covered with a granite sand and huge irregular masses of stone,
among which a few plants force their growth, and give the appearance of
a green field covered with the ruins of a vast edifice. These stones and
this sand discover, on examination, a perfect analogy with those which
compose the arid and broken summits of the Rocky Mountains. The flood
of waters which washed the soil to the bottom of the valley aft