Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1879-05-17
Commercial Geography OF the Mis-.
sissippi Valley.

contain over twelve hundred thousand
SQUARE miles. This includes of course
the country drained by all Of its tribu-
taries. Only one river valley in the
world is larger, that of the Amazon,
which contains perhaps two millions of
square miles. The Mississippi Valley
is part of what is called the Great Cen
trail Plain Of North America. On the
north there are the other river valleys
of the St. Lawrence, the Red River OF
the North, Mackenzie's, and numerous
smaller streams flowing into the waters
of Hudson's Bay. On the south there
are the streams flowing directly into the
Gulf of MexicO-running a parallel
course to the Mississippi, the most con-
siderable of these being the Rio
Grande.
But the feature which renders the
Mississippi Valley the most important
of the river valleys of the world is not
its extent alone; indeed, as already in
timated, in this respect the Amazon
would present superior claims. 1t is the
fact that the Mississippi Valley is the
most happily located of all the rivers of
the world for the advantages of COM
merce. A river which, like the ANA
zon, flows from the east to west, or the
opposite, Is likely to have valley pos
sessing only one climate, and conse-
quentiy no variety of vegetable produc-
tons throughout its entire length.
Without variety Of productions there
can be no trade. Whatever is raised
along the banks of the Amazon must go
down to its mouth and be shipped for
thousands of miles before it can find
market. And this is likely to be always
so. For the valley of the Amazon is so
disportionate in size to the rest of South
America, that its vegetable productions
will always exceed the capacity of home
consumption, by a hundred fold. Its
fertility is also to be taken into account.
The Amazon flows along the Equator,
and the undue heat and moisture which
it receives is sufficient to cause the allu-
vial soils along its banks to produce an
amount of vegetable growths equal to,
if not greater, than the entire product of
the rest of the world.
Notwithstanding this advantage of
superior fertility, the valley of the Mis-
sissippi is still the most favored on the
whole. In fact the very advantages OF
the Amazon are in one sense its great
est disadvantages at first. For the eli
mate and soil that is SO we'll adapted to
the production of vegetable life, is not
adapted to the development and perfec-
ton of animal life-nOt to say human
life. Human energy must be powerful
ly reinforced by labor-saving inventions
and appliances, before the valley of the
Amazon can be inhabited by man. At
present only the lowest orders of ami
NAL life are to be found there. No ma
iest;c quadrupeds, but hideous reptiles
and swarming insects infest the tangled
thickets of central Brazil. When man
is able to conquer for agriculture the
tropical river valleys he will be able to
provide food for hundred times the
number of human beings that tread the
earth now. But all this is matter of
the future of applied science, and not a
matter with which we are concerned in
this article.
To be valuable for purposes Of COM
merce, q river must flow north or
south; it must flow through different
climates; it must flow through popu-
lous region; it must connect with the
ocean at latitude where the frost does
not seal its outlet during any portion of
the year; it must be deep and slow-fow-
ing.
All of these advantages the Mississip-
pi possesses. and they are possessed to
such an extent by no ether river ON the
face Of the entire globe. The rivers of
Northern Europe flow into an ocean
with no outlet-at least no safe outlet
during the winter season; the great
rivers of Northern Asia have the same
difficulty. Besides, they do not take
their rise far south enough to reach the
productions of the tropics; only the
products of the northern part Of the
temperate zone could be carried to mar