Upper Mississippi River

“ Anthony’s Falls, may be considered as the termination of this tract. Above this point, although the Mississippi has some rich alluvions, as at the mouth of Sandy Lake River, its vegetation assumes generally an alpine character, and a large portion of the wide area of its valley, is traversed by pine ridges, with innumerable intervening lakes, and extensive tracts of, what the natives denominate, mushkeegs. ”

“ The Ohio is commercially the most important tributary, and in flood time most of the commerce on the Lower Mississippi consists of coal and other heavy freight received from the mouth of this river. Its navigation at low water has also been improved by dredging, rock excavation and contraction works. In its upper reaches a channel 9 ft. in depth had been obtained before 1909 by the construction of a number of locks with collapsible dams which are thrown down by a flood. ”

“ All Southern rivers are liable to like extremes.
[pg 259]
In contrast, it may be noted that the St. Lawrence River but slightly varies its flow, above Montreal, because of the restraining power of the Great Lakes, its feeders. The upper Mississippi rises not to excess because of the thousands of lakes and lakelets in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Dakota, its sources. The floods occur in its southern portion, chiefly below St. Louis. But for this reservoir system its navigation in the upper portion would be seriously impeded in summer seasons. ”

“ Night fell as we were going out of the 'Upper River' and meeting the floods of the Ohio. We dashed along without anxiety; for the hidden rock which used to lie right in the way has moved up stream a long distance out of the channel; or rather, about one county has gone into the river from the Missouri point, and the Cairo point has 'made down' and added to its long tongue of territory correspondingly. The Mississippi is a just and equitable river; it never tumbles one man's farm overboard without building a new farm just like it for that man's neighbor. ”

“ Its immediate shores are circumscribed with a broad beach of gravel, in which may be found rolled pieces of the chalcedonies, agates, and other species of the quartz family, which are characteristic of the drift-stratum of the upper borders of the Mississippi. On the eastern shore, at a short distance from the margin, there is a lofty range of limestone cliffs. On the west, the eye rests on an elevated formation of prairie, nearly destitute of trees. ”

“ On crossing through the forty-fifth parallel of latitude, the Mississippi exhibits a change in the materials of its banks preparatory to its entering the limestone region. This is first rendered strikingly visible on the rapids immediately above the Falls of St. Anthony. The fall itself is an imposing exhibition of geological scenery. The river here sinks its level about forty feet, in the distance of, say 1,500 yards. ”

“ The ditches were filled, sandbanks formed in many places, and the sugar-cane fields covered with the débris of the Mississippi. There were two or three crevasses of nearly equal magnitude between Port Hudson and the mouth of Red river, and upper Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi suffered terribly from the overflow, caused in great part by the breaking away of the newly built levees. The entire valley of Red river, whose bottoms furnish perhaps the best cotton lands in the world, was inundated below Jefferson, Texas. Many of the best buildings in Shreveport and Alexandria were undermined. ”

“ Many Americans have made long trips to see the beauties of the Rhine and the Danube; the far grander beauty of the Mississippi is to our own people still an unexplored country. There are awaiting those who would go and see a thousand Inspiration Points on the upper Mississippi and ten thousand miles of semi-tropical wilderness, cane-brake, forest, lakes, and bayous on the lower river and its southern tributaries. Most Americans know the Mississippi only as a crooked black line on the map. ”

“ From notes taken on the ascent, it cannot be short of one hundred and sixty feet above Cass Lake. Adding the estimate of 1330 feet, submitted in 1820, as the elevation of that lake, the Mississippi may be considered to originate at an altitude of 1490, say 1500 feet, above the Atlantic. Its length, assuming former data as the basis, and computing it, through the Itascan, or west fork, may be placed at 3160 miles, one hundred and eighty-two of which, comprises an estimate of its length above Cass Lake. ”

“ There are men now living who may see all this vast expenditure utilized, as it is not now. The building of the inter-oceanic canal across the isthmus is certain to give new direction to the commerce of the world. It is fair to presume that the Mississippi 80 may again assert itself as one of the greatest arteries of commerce in the world, and that the products of the Minnesota and Dakota farms will find their way down the river to New Orleans, instead of across the continent to New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore tidewater. ”

“ Louis to a summit which descends west to the Upper Mississippi, the waters of which we entered about five hundred miles above the Falls of St. Anthony, and some three hundred miles above the ulterior point reached with boats by Lieutenant Pike in December, 1805.
From this point we ascended the Mississippi, by its involutions, to its upper falls at Pakagama, where it dashes over a rock formation. A vast plateau of grass and aquatic plants succeeds, through which it winds as in a labyrinth. On this plateau we encountered and passed across the southern Lake Winnipek. ”

“ It is so much larger and longer than the Upper Mississippi that it ought to be considered the main river, and with the Lower Mississippi form the longest river in the world. It rises among the Rocky Mountains, near the border of Montana and Idaho, its general direction being southeast to the Mississippi, which it reaches, after crossing the whole state of Missouri, near St. ”

“ Assuming, then, that the lowest terrace, on the Scioto river for example, has been formed since the era of the mounds, we must next consider that the excavating power of the Western rivers diminishes yearly, in proportion as they approximate towards a general level. On the lower Mississippi,—where alone the ancient monuments are sometimes invaded by the water,—the bed of the stream is rising, from the deposition of the materials brought down from the upper tributaries, where the excavating process is going on. ”

“ The line may be commenced where it crosses the Mississippi, at the Peace Rock, and extended to the St. Croix, the falls of which are on the trap-rock, to the sources of the Chippewa at Lac du Flambeau, and the Wisconsin near Plover Portage. The source of Fox River runs amid uprising masses of sienite, and this formation appears to pass thence northeasterly, across the [335] Upper Menominee, to the district of the Totosh and Cradle-Top Mountains, west of Chocolate River, on the shores of Lake Superior. ”

“ The population is enterprising and warlike. They have the means of subsistence in comparative abundance. They are increasing in numbers. They command a ready access to the Mississippi by water, and a ready return from it by land. Habits of association have taught them to look upon this stream as the theatre of war. Their young men are carried into it as the natural and almost only means of distinction. And it is in coincidence with all observation, to say that they are now, as they were in the days of Captain Carver, the terror of the east bank of this river, between the St. ”

“ Upon the disappearance of the forests, the melting snows and early rains having no holding grounds, are carried quickly to the river, which as quickly rises to an abnormal stage in the early part of the season, to be followed by a dearth which later reduces the Mississippi to the dimensions of a second-rate stream, whereon navigation is impossible for great steamers, and arduous, disheartening and unprofitable for boats of any class. ”

“ At the risk of detracting somewhat from the picturesqueness of life on the upper Mississippi as it is sometimes delineated, it must in truth be said that little real racing was indulged in, as compared with the lower river, or even with the preconceived notion of what transpired on the upper reaches. ”

“ The space which each band periodically traverses, in this effort, is extensive, and subjects them to casualties, which they would otherwise escape. Their condition is still further imbittered by hostilities with the Sioux tribes, who occupy the whole line of their western frontier. They cover the entire north-western angle of the United States, extending down the Mississippi valley on both banks, as145 low as the Wadub, being the first stream above Sac river. ”

“ At the junction of the Ohio the Mississippi's depth is eighty-seven feet; the depth increases gradually, reaching one hundred and twenty-nine just above the mouth.
The difference in rise and fall is also remarkable—not in the upper, but in the lower river. The rise is tolerably uniform down to Natchez (three hundred and sixty miles above the mouth) —about fifty feet. But at Bayou La Fourche the river rises only twenty-four feet; at New Orleans only fifteen, and just above the mouth only two and one half. ”

“ The Mississippi is indeed a grand study, and the people who have lived in its valley during past ages have seen the river doing just what it is doing to-day; and as race has succeeded race, each in turn has seen the landmarks of its predecessors swept away by its angry flood and buried beneath its sediment. ”

“ I know not how else to account for the light which has suddenly burst upon us from this bank of the Mississippi, and which has at once proved it to be as valuable for the purposes of agriculture as for those of mining, and as sylvan in its appearance as if it were not fringed, as it were, with rocks, and lying at a great elevation above the water. This elevation is so considerable as to permit a lively descent in the streams, forming numerous mill-seats. The surface of the country is not, however, broken, but may be compared to the heavy and lazy-rolling waves of the sea after a tempest. ”

“ Ascent of the east fork of the Mississippi, from Kubbakunna Lake to the Naiwa rapids.—Its productions.—Indians kill a deer; their mode of dissecting it.—Reach the foot of Naiwa rapids.—The Naiwa portage.—Copper-head snake.—Zoned agate.—Journey from thence to Ossowa Lake, the source of this branch of the Mississippi.—Mistake in the latitude.—Portage from the east to the west branch.—Hauteur des Terres.—The height of land between the Hudson’s Bay and Gulf of Mexico waters.—Geographical notices of its extent.—Its natural productions.—Its geology.—Arrival at Itasca Lake. ”

“ The principal rivers of the State are the Mississippi, flowing the entire length of the western margin, the Tombigbee, Big Black, and Pearl. The Yazoo River is a distributary of the Mississippi, and the whole area of its bottoms is a mesh of interlacing streams, bayous, and oxbow lakes. About one-half the area of the State drains directly into the Mississippi River. The bottom lands of the Mississippi and other rivers are liable to overflow when the rivers are flooded. ”

“ Few of the people of the North have ever inquisitively considered the Mississippi River, and as a consequence its numerous peculiarities are not generally known. Indeed, its only characteristic features are supposed to be immensity of proportions rather than any specific variation from the universal nature of rivers. Many there are that have never seen the river, and have conceptions of its appearance merely in imagination ”

“ Upper Mississippi. Oenothere biennis, Var. Bois Brulé River of Lake Superior. “ serrulata, Nuttall. Upper Mississippi. Psoralea argophylla, Pursh. Falls of St. Anthony. Primula farinosa, Var. americana, Torrey. Lakes Huron and Superior. “ mistasinica, Michaux. Keweena Point Lake Superior. Pingwicula (N. Spec.) Presque Isle, Lake Superior. Parnassia americana, Muhlenberg. Lake Michigan. Pedicularis gladiata, Michaux. Fox River. Pinus nigra, Lambert. Lake Superior. “ banksiana, Lambert. Lake Superior. Populus tremuloides, Michaux. Northwest Ter. “ loevigata, Willdenow. Upper Mississippi. ”

“ In a commercial point of view is the Mississippi equally as remarkable as in its physical presentations. It is the aorta through which, from the heart of the nation, flow the bountiful returns of industrious and productive labor, which thus find an outlet to all parts of the world, opening an avenue of trade for millions of energetic men and fertile acres. Thus not only is it the life-supporting, but as well the life-imparting artery of a great section of the republic.
But it is unnecessary to speak of the commercial importance of the river. This is patent to everybody. ”

“ After entering the Mississippi, below Sandy Lake, the stream presents very much the character it has above. It was below this point that we first observed the juglans nigra in the forest. Its banks are diluvial or alluvial formations, elevated from six to ten feet. The elm, maple, and pine are common. There are some small grassy islands, with tufts of willows, and driftwood lodged. No rock strata appear. The river winds its way through vast diluvial beds, exhibiting at its rapids granitical, quartz, and trappose boulders. ”

“ The flood evil is in a large way the underlying cause of most of the trouble in the Mississippi. At time of flood, the erosive power of the river is increased a hundredfold, caving of the banks is often excessive, levees situated rods from the channel before the flood and apparently safe are undermined, and the narrowing of necks between bends is greatly accelerated or quickly accomplished. ”