Quasqueton guardian. (Quasqueton, Buchanan County, Iowa) 1856-1858, 1857-11-05
THE fiIsSESsIPPI RIVER.


This is the nest important river in
North America, and with the Missouri
its principal continent, is the largest in
the world. 1t extends 8, 100 miles, and
if we regard The Missouri as its continu-
alton, it is 4,5OO miles long. 1t would
reach from New York across the Atlant-
ic, and extend through France, Germany
Austria and Turkey in Europe, and pen
citrate the remote Caspian Sea in Oriental
Asia. The average width from the Falls
Of st. Anthony, in Minnesota, to its delta
on the Gulf of Mexico, is nearly half a
mile its average depth ITO feet. 1t is
always navigable to the mouth of the
Ohio, and the upper part for seven or
eight months in the year. Its course is
from north to south, and the trapper de-
scending the river may take with him the
furs Of the animals that inhabit its source
and exchange them for sugar, and tropi-
cal fruits that are gathered on its banks
below.
Again, the floods produced by winter
SHOWS and spring rains cannot be sim
ultaneously discharged. Spring advan-
ces in reverse direction to the current
of the stream, releases in succession the
waters of the lower valley, then in the
middle section, and finally of the remote
source of its tributaries in the Rocky
Mountains and hills of the North. 1t
takes over month for the floods to travel
from its source to its delta.
The total value of steamboats, ahoat on
this mighty river and its tributaries, is
estimated at IS, 900, 600, and their mum
Der 800, with an aggregate burthen of
more than twice the entire steamboat tun-
mage of Great Britain, and probably equal
to that of all other parts of the world
1t drains an area of 1,200,0 600 square
miles, which from its unexampled fertil-
ity, has obtained the title, ''The Garden
of the New World" In extent, fertility,
variety of scenery, and diversity of eli
mate, its valley surpasses any other on
The globe. 1t receives a score of tribu-
taries, the last of which is larger than the
vaunted streams of mighty empires. 1t
might furnish natural boundaries for all
Europe, and yet leave every country a
river greater than the Seine
1t engulfs more every season than the
revenue of many petty kingdom, and
at speed unknown TO- any other great
river, it rolls volume in whose depths
the Cathedral of st. Paul might be sunk
out CT sight. 1t flows from the country
of the savage TO that of civilization and
refinement, and i'm its descent are the gra-
dations of thlckening fields and glowing
cultivation which line its course, until it
reaches its culmnation-a crowded city
1t discharges in one year more water
than has been issued from the Tiber in
FIVE centuries it swallows up nearly ff-
ty rivers that have yet no names, each of
which is larger than the Thames. The
addition of the waters of the "dark roll
ing Danube would not swell it half a
fathom and in a single bend the navies
of the world might ride at anchor in the
heart of the Republic, 500 miles from the
sea.
1t washes the shores of twelve powerful
States, and between its arms lie space for
twenty more. The rain which falls from
the Alleghanies, and the SHOWS that
shroud the slopes and cap the SUBMITS
of the Rocky Mountains, are borne upon
its bosom to the regions of perpetual
summer, and poured into the sea more
than 1, 500 leagues from their sources
1t has formed larger tract of land by
the alluvial deposits of its inundations
than is contained in Great Britain and
Ireland, and snnually bears away more
acres than it would require to make a
German principally.