SOURCE OP ST. Peter's river. 217 



broad and deep valley. They serve not only to beautify 

 the landscape, but to remind the traveller of the great 

 changes'wrought upon the surface of the globe by the 

 agency of water. 



The upper Mississippi is also remarkable for the great 

 Avidth of its bed, and the multiplicity of islands it embo- 

 soms. It spreads in many places to the width of five 

 or six miles, and seems to lose itself among countless 

 islands through which it flows in numberless small chan- 

 nels. Between the mouth of the Missouri and Lake 

 Pepin, no less than six hundred and forty islands of con- 

 siderable size have been enumerated. Lake Pepin is a 

 very beautiful enlargement of the river, twenty-two miles 

 long and from one to three broad, destitute of islands, and 

 affording a great depth of water. Above the lake the river 

 becomes narrower, and the islands smaller and less nu- 

 merous. 



The valley country is made up of prairies and woodlands 

 alternating with each other ; the former of which are usu- 

 ally elevated above the reach of floods, and are richly car- 

 peted with herbage and flowers, while the latter sustain a 

 dense and heavy growth of trees, intermixed with vines 

 and shrubbery, and are, for the most part, subject to inun- 

 dation in flood time. 



During the spring floods, which usually prevail during 

 the months of April, May, and June, this part of the Mis- 

 sissippi is navigable to the mouth of the St. Peter for 

 boats of great burden. In a low stage of water the rapids 

 above mentioned oppose serious obstructions to the navi- 

 gation, which is also rendered still more precarious by the 

 numerous shoals and bars with which the bed of the river 

 is infested. The rapidity of the current decreases as we 

 ascend, being about three miles per hour at the mouth of 



