170 OP THE MISSISSIPPI, 



west bank of the main channel never return; on the east, a 

 chain of high land, which at many points is washed by the 

 river, meandering along its valley, compels its waters to rejoin 

 the primitive stream; but from Baton Rouge, the high land 

 which has hitherto held a southerly course, diverges suddenly 

 to south east, and is no more visited by the grand channel of 

 the Mississippi; all the waters which escape to the eastward 

 between Baton Rouge and Manshac (15 miles) are collected by 

 the Iberville, which, passing through a breach in the high land 

 of about 60 yards wide, delivers its contents to the river Amit, 

 which empties itself into lake Maurepas, communicating with 

 the ocean by the intervention of the more considerable lake 

 Pontchartrain : the high land is continued in a very narrow 

 tongue or promontory, in a south easterly direction, along the 

 island of New-Orleans, which is disruptured in many places, 

 thereby venting the waters of the inundation into the lakes, 

 which otherwise would be collected into an oblong bason, for- 

 med by the high land on the one hand, and the bank of the 

 river on the other — one half of the island of New-Orleans 

 would have thereby become so completely inundated as to be 

 uninhabitable. 



The perpendicular height of the high lands above the level 

 of the inundation is from 200 to 300 feet at Natchez; at Baton 

 Rouge it does not exceed 25, and on the island of New-Or- 

 leans it declines so rapidly as frequently to be lost under the 

 accumulations of soil deposited by the waters of the inunda- 

 tion. In the sides of a canal from New-Orleans to the river 

 St. John's, communicating with lake. Pontchartrain, Idiscovered 

 the continuation of the high land cut through to the breadth 

 of little more than 20 feet. 



To a stranger, the first view of the Mississippi conveys not 

 that idea of grandeur, which he may have pictured to him- 

 self: his first judgment will rest upon the appearance of its 

 breadth, in which respect it is inferior to many rivers of much 

 less note. Its principal channel is rarely a mile in width any 

 where below the Ohio, unless where its stream is divided by 

 islands or shallows; it is not unfrequently less than half a mile. 

 The magnitude of this river is not to be computed by its width, 



