wever, been made, and
little is known of the course and mutual relations of the chains. The
timber found here is pitch-pine, shrub oaks, cedar, etcetera, indicative
of the poverty of the soil; in the uplands of the rest of the state,
hickory, post-oak, and white oaks, etcetera, are the prevailing growth;
and in river-bottoms, the cotton tree, sycamore or button-wood, maple,
ash, walnut, etcetera, predominate. The south-eastern corner of the
state, below Cape Girardeau, and east of the Black River, is a portion
of the immense inundated region which borders the Arkansas. A
considerable part of this tract is indeed above the reach of the floods,
but these patches are isolated and inaccessible, except by boats, during
the rise of the waters.

My friend Mr Courtenay penetrated these swamps with three Indians and
two negroes. His companions were bogged and lost; he returned, having
killed seven fine elks and two buffaloes. Some of these mighty animals
have been breeding there for a long while, undisturbed by man.

The state of Missouri is abundantly supplied with navigable channels,
affording easy access to all parts. The Mississippi washes the eastern
border, by the windings of the stream, for a distance of about four
hundred and seventy miles. Above St. Genevieve, it flows for the most
part between high and abrupt cliffs of limestone, rising to an elevation
of from one hundred to four hundred feet above the surface of the river;
sometimes separated from it by bottoms of greater or less width, and at
others springing up abruptly from the water's edge. A few miles below
Cape Girardeau, and about thirty-five miles above the mouth of the Ohio,
are the rocky ledges, called the Little and Grand Chain; and about
half-way between that point and St. Genevieve, is the Grand Tower, one
of the wonders of the Mississippi. It is a stupendous pile of rocks, of
a conical form, about one hundred and fifty feet high, and one hundred
feet circumference at its base, rising up out of the bed of the river.
It seems, in connection with the rocky shores on both sides, to have
been opposed, at some former period, as a barrier to the flow of the
Mississippi, which must here have had a perpendicular fell of more than
one hundred feet.

The principal tributaries of the Mississippi, with the exception of the
Missouri, are the Desmoines, Wyacond, Fabius, Salt, and Copper Rivers,
above that great stream, and the Merrimac, St. Francis, and Whit