58 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



persons are drowned in it than in other rivers of corresponding- 

 magnitude. The peculiar character of the Missouri gives unique- 

 ness to the scenery along its shores. A position on some of the 

 terraces or bluffs overlooking the river give views of unsurpassed 

 beauty. There is one such of remarkable grandeur above lona, 

 in Dixon County, where the river touches the bluff, throwing its 

 wide bottom into Dakota Territory. From this point the river can 

 be seen towards the east for fifteen miles. The jdark cotton wood 

 groves, the curves of the river, the Dakota plain on the northern 

 side, studded with homesteads, constitutes a picture that rivals in 

 beauty the most famous scenes in the world. Another equally fine 

 view of the river can be had from the top of the bluff on the road 

 from Ponca to the Missouri bottom. 



With some obnoxious elements attached to its character, it is as 

 we have already seen, a storehouse of blessings to the sections 

 through which it flows. Had it not been for the Missouri the set- 

 tlement of this region would have been indefinitely delayed. It is 

 a highway to the commerce and markets of the world; and on this 

 highway the first emigrants reached Nebraska, and sent off their 

 products to other regions. As the Missouri is navigable for two 

 thousand miles above Omaha it was a great highway for traffic 

 with the mountain regions of Idaho, Dakota and Montana. Since 

 the building of railroads its business has fallen off. Vessels still 

 run from Sioux City and Yankton to the upper Missouri and the 

 Yellowstone. Latterly there are indications of a revival of business 

 on the lower Missouri. Joseph A. Conner, Esq. has this season 

 (Summer of 1879) shipped three boat loads of produce to St. Louis 

 from Plattsmouth. The last load took down sixty car loads of 

 corn and twelve hundred hogs. It cost him fifteen cents per hun- 

 dred against twenty-seven cents which the railroads charged. 

 Unfortunately, this competition only lasts through the summer. 

 The Missouri is not navigable for five or six months through the 

 winter season. 



Next in importance to the Missouri is the Platte river. For 

 length it approximates closely to twelve hundred miles. Its head 

 waters originate in the mountains, and many of them rise in beauti- 

 ful lakelets fed by the everlasting snows. No lakelets for example 

 can be more interesting than those between the spurs of mountains 

 twelve thousend feet above the sea level, w r here the Cache Le 

 Poudre river is born. Though precipitous and eratic in Colorado 



