40 NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST. 



and blue ash, red elm, two or three species of maple, the 

 lime tree, birch, a few hickories and walnuts. The western 

 shore is more generally interspersed with swamps and wood- 

 lands, well set with pines, birch, and sometimes with exten- 

 sive camps of the sugar-maple." — {Nic, p. 54.) 



" The first steamboat arrived at St. Louis in 1819. Since 

 that time the Upper Missisippi is covered with these boats ; 

 and the number of arrivals yearly at Galena and Dubuque is 

 upwards of 1000. A few boats go above. In the summer of 

 1844, two boats were used to run regularly from Galena to 

 St. Peter's. No summer has passed in the last five years 

 without the passage of some boats up the river to that point 

 with parties of pleasure, to enjoy the cool prairie breezes and 

 rich scenery of that upper region. 



Beside the steamboats, there are keel boats used for 

 conveying produce and merchandise ; flat boats, and dug outs 

 or canoes, rudely made of logs. Occasionally a Mackinac 

 boat, sloop-rigged, is seen there, brought over from the lake 

 by the Fox and Wisconsin rivers. The obstructions which 

 are so annoying to the navigator below the mouth of the 

 Missouri, known under the name of planters, saw3^ers, snags 

 and rafts, are but rarely found above the confluence of the 

 two streams, in the Missisippi. 



The river has an annual rise, from. April to June, of some 

 six to ten feet ; and there is sometimes a second rise about 

 September. The usual velocity of the current is about two 

 miles an hour. The water is very clear. 



Missouri River. — Of the Missouri River much less is 

 known than of the Missisippi, and it is also at this time 

 much less an object of interest. The current of the Mis- 

 souri is said to be about four miles an hour, or doulile that 

 of the Missisippi. Its water is turbid, and in these two par- 



