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point of its origin, would give it to be in lat.47° 47' N. though in shaking of the sourceof large rivers, which are formed of a greatnumber of tributaries, it is not often possibleto say, precisely, which particular branch car-ries the most water, or ought to be called theparent stream. It is 1,000 in. from its sourceto its junction with the Missouri , and 1,310from that junction to its mouth at the Uulf ofMexico, making its whole length 2,010 m. Itsgcueral course is south. Its most important

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stream. The circumstances that change theaspect and current of the river, are denomi-nated, in the vocabulary of the watermen,chutes, races, chains, sawyers, planters, pointsof islands, wreck-heaps, and cypress-l>ends. Itoccurs more than once, that in moving rounda curve of twenty-five or thirty miles, you willreturn so near the jxiint whence you started,that you can return back to that point, by land,in less than a mile. There are, at present,bends of this sort on the Missouri and the Mis-

branches, beginning at its mouth, are the ( sissippi, particularly at Tunica bend, wherelied river, the Arkansas, and the Missouri , on;you move round a curve of thirty miles, andthe west, the latter of which is, by far, the j come back to the point, where you see throughgreatest tributary which it receives. Its two. the trees, and at the distance of three quartersprincipal branches on the east, are the Ohio |of a mile, the point whence you departed. Theand the Illinois . Ships rarely ascend the Mis-j divinity most frequently invoked by boatmen,sissippi higher than Natchez, which is 322 in. j seems to have imparted his name oftencr thanby the river, above New Orleans , but it is navi-! any other to the dangerous places along thegated by steam-boats to the Falls of St. An- river. The “devil’s” race-paths, tea-table,

thony, a distance of more than 2,000 m. fromits month. Down these falls, the river, whichis here about half a mile wide, precipitates itswaters in a perpendicular descent of sixteenor seventeen feet. For a long distance belowthese fulls, it is a clear, placid, and beautifulstream, with wide and fertile bottoms. Itsmedial current is not more than 2 m. an hourfrom the falls to the mouth of the Missouri , ex-cept at the rapids, a lew miles below the mouthof the river lies Moines, which arc about 9 min length, and sire a considerable impedimentto the navigation during a part of the summer.Where it receives the Missouri , it is a mileand a half wide. The Missouri itself enterswith a mouth not more than half a mile wide.'I'he united stream below, has thence, to themouth of the Ohio , a medial width of littlemore than three quarters of a mile. Thismighty tributary seems rather to diminish thanincrease its width ; but it perceptibly alters itsdepth, its mass of waters, and, what is to beregretted, wholly changes its character. It isno longer the gentle, placid stream, withsmooth shores and clean sand-bars; but has afurious and boiling current, a turbid and dangerous mass of sweeping waters, jagged anddilapidated shores, and, wherever its watersha\e receded, deposits of mud. Below theMissouri its rapidity should be rated consider-ably higher than has been commonly done. Itsmedial rate of advance is perhaps four milesan hour. The bosom of the river is coveredwith prodigious boils, or swells, that rise with awhirling motion, and a convex surface, two orthree rods in diameter, and no inconsiderablenoise, whirling a boat perceptibly from itstrack. In its course, accidental circumstancesshift the impetus of its current, and propel itupon the point of an island, bend, or sand-bar.In these instances, it tears up the islands, re-moves the sand-bars, and sweeps away thetender alluvial soil of the bends, with all theirtrees, and dejiosits the njioils in another place.At the season of high waters, nothing is morefamiliar to the ear of the people on the river,than the deep crash of a land-slip, in whichlarger or smaller masses of the soil on thebanks, with ail the trees, arc plunged into the

oven, &c. are places of difficult or hazardousnavigation, that frequently occur. They are.serious impediments to the navigation of thisnoble stream. Such is its character from Mis-souri to the Balizc; a wild, furious, whirlingriver—never navigated safely, except withgreat caution. On tiie immense wreck-heaps,where masses of logs, like considerable hills,are piled together, the numerous wrecks oflioats, lying on their sides and summits, suflficiently attest .the .character of the river, andremain standing mementoes to caution. Boatspropelled by steam-power, which can be chang-ed in a moment, to reverse the impulse anddirection of the boat, are exactly calculated toobviate the dangers of this river. No personwho descends this river for the first time, re-ceives clear and adequate ideas of its grandeur,and tiie amount of water which its carries. If'it be in the spring, when the river below themouth of the Ohio is generally over its banks,although the sheet of water that is making itsway to tiie gulf is, jicrhaps, thirty miles wide,yet finding its way through deep forests andswamps that conceal all from the eye, no ex-panse of water is seen, but the width that iscurved out between the outline of woods oneither bank ; and it seldom exceeds, and oftenerfalls short of a mile. But when he sees, indescending from the Falls of St. Anthony, thatit swallows up one river after another, withmouths us wide as itself without affecting itswidth at all; when he sees it receiving insuccession the mightv Missouri , the broadOhio, St. Francis, White, Arkansas , and Redrivers, all of them of great depth, length, andvolume of water; when lie sees this mightyriver absorbing them all, and retaining a vol-ume apparently unchanged—he begins to esti-mate rightly the increased depths of current,that must roll on in its deep channel to thesea. From the sources of the river to themouth of the Missouri , the annual flood ordi-narily commences in March, and does notsubside until the last of May ; and its medialheight is fifteen feet. At the lowest stages,four feet of water may be found from theRapids of Dos Moines to the mouth of theMissouri . Between that point and the mouth