MISSISSIPPI RIVER 



3851 



MISSISSIPPI RIVER 



United States. From the time it leaves its 

 reedy source in Northern Minnesota until it 

 pours its vast floods into the Gulf of Mexico, 

 it touches only the one country. From its 

 source to its mouth it is 2,459 miles long, but 

 because of occasional cut-offs at the loops and 



GREATEST RIVERS OF THE WORLD 

 The Mississippi and the Missouri are usually 

 considered as one river system. The diagram 

 shows graphically the comparative lengths of the 

 ten greatest rivers, in miles. 



the back-cutting toward the sources, the length 

 is decreasing at one time and increasing at an- 

 other, sometimes as much as fifty miles during 

 a year. 



As popularly stated, it has its rise in Lake 

 Itasca, but the lakes of that region are so 

 numerous and so confusing that it is impossible 

 to say in just which one the great river really 

 has its source. But when it issues from Lake 

 Itasca, which is 1,470 feet above sea level, it is 

 a little stream ten or twelve feet wide and less 

 than two feet deep. It rushes on swiftly in a 

 northerly direction for a time, and then, twist- 

 ing and circling, finds its way through lake and 

 swamp and over rapids until it settles into its 

 generally southeasterly flow. Tributaries join 

 it here and there, some of them almost as large 

 as the main river, and by the time it reaches 

 Minneapolis it has grown to a considerable size. 

 Still, no one looking upon it here would call it 

 the "Father of Waters;" it must have been the 

 Indians farther along in its course who named it. 



Thus far it has been entirely within the state 

 of Minnesota, but soon after it passes Saint 

 Paul it ceases to run through the state and be- 

 comes the boundary between Minnesota and 

 Wisconsin, nor does it again cross a state until, 

 just before it reaches its mouth, it cuts across 

 the southeastern corner of Louisiana. Mean- 

 while it has been bordered, on the west, by 

 Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Lou- 

 isiana, and on the east by Wisconsin, Illinois, 



Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. It winds 

 now to the east and now to the west in great 

 curves, which are everywhere broken by lesser 

 windings. 



Tributaries. It receives constantly from both 

 sides other rivers and streams some tiny, some 

 the centers of great drainage systems. The 

 Wisconsin, the Des Moines, the Illinois, the 

 Kaskaskia, the Ohio, the Arkansas, the Yazoo 

 and the Red these are a few of the more im- 

 portant tributaries, but most of them are in- 

 significant compared with the Missouri, which 

 pours in its vast floods a little above Saint 

 Louis. Altogether, there are comprised in the 

 Mississippi system no fewer than 250 tribu- 

 taries and their branches. 



Some Interesting Figures. As stated above, 

 the length of the Mississippi proper is 2,459 

 miles, but the longest river in the world, which 

 includes the Missouri throughout its entire 

 course and the Mississippi below its junction 

 with that other giant stream, has a total length 

 of 4,200 miles. Geographers consider the Mis- 

 souri the trunk stream, though it is popularly 

 regarded as a tributary. The whole system, 

 main streams and tributaries, affords almost 

 14,000 miles of navigable waterway, much of 

 which lies between fertile banks in the richest 

 part of the country. About forty-one per cent 

 of the United States, Alaska excepted, sends its 

 waters by this vast system to the Gulf of 

 Mexico, for the drainage basin has an area of 

 1,240,050 square miles. In width, there are, of 

 course, great variations, but nowhere is the 

 river crowded between narrow banks, and so re- 

 duced to a rushing torrent, as are some of the 

 Western rivers which start out as broad, slug- 

 gish streams. At Saint Paul the Mississippi is 

 300 feet wide at low water, but by the time it 

 receives the Illinois its breadth has increased to 

 1,400 feet. 



The Missouri makes a great change in it, 

 and in some places, between the mouth of that 

 river and the mouth of the Ohio, the natural 

 width is as much as 7,000 feet. Here, as else- 

 where, projects for the narrowing and deepen- 

 ing of the river are on foot, and where these 

 improvements have been introduced the stream 

 does not exceed 2,500 feet. Below the mouth 

 of the Ohio the natural river is sometimes 

 10,500 feet across, but the projected width is 

 3,000 feet (see subhead Floods, below). The 

 depth, too, varies greatly; in some places, even 

 after the stream has become a great river 1,500 

 feet across, its shallower parts in mid-channel 

 may not be more than two feet deep, while be- 



