526 



NA TURE 



[March 28, 1901 



The Mississippi is one of the largest rivers in the world. It 

 penetrates the heart of the most fertile portion of the United 

 States for a distance of 2550 miles, and has I5,cx30 miles of 

 navigable tributaries. Its headwaters rise amidst the pine-clad 

 hills of northern Minnesota, where the long winters reach almost 

 a polar cold, and winds its way through the varying conditions 

 of climate of ten great States to the semi-tropical lowlands of 

 southern Louisiana, finally losing itself in the Gulf of Mexico. 

 Its drainage area, of over l^ million square miles, covers nearly 

 half of the United States, and is equal to the whole of Europe 

 exclusive of Russia. The region which it drains has no equal 

 in any part of the world for fertility of soil and natural resources, 

 such as vegetable products, timber, coal and minerals of various 

 kinds. On its surface are borne immense cargoes of grain, coal 

 and lumber gathered from the resources of a vast district and 

 despatched across seas to all parts of the world. In its upper 

 reaches it affords power to innumerable saw-mills and flour- 

 mills and manufacturing industries. 



The source of this great river has long been the subject of 

 controversy. The earliest white explorers who first visited the 

 country where the Mississippi rises were the French fur traders, 

 but the earliest authentic account of the exploration of its 

 source is that of William Morrison, who visited the district in 

 1804. The next explorer who recorded the results of his 

 survey was R. H. Schoolcraft, in 1832, who located the head- 

 waters in Lake Itasca. In 1872 the New York Herald sent a 

 representative to visit the source of the river, with instructions 

 to navigate the stream thence to the Gulf of Mexico. Again, 

 in 1879, the Louisville Courier Journal sent an expedition to 

 Itasca Lake. It was not, however, until 1889 that the first 

 thorough exploration of the basin was made under the direction 

 of the Minnesota Historical Society. 



The State of Minnesota has set aside a reservation of 3$ square 

 miles, covering the basin of Lake Itasca, thus preserving for ever 

 sacred the source of the father of rivers in the "Itasca State 

 Park." 



Unlike the origin of most large rivers which commence as 

 mountain torrents, the Mississippi leaves its source with a width 

 of 30 feet and a depth of 5 feet, and starts on its journey at an 

 altitude of 1560 feet above sea-level. Commercial navigation 

 reaches to within 25 miles of the lake, and thousands of sawn 

 logs are floated down the stream every summer. At about 60 

 miles from the source the Government have constructed reser- 

 voirs, capable of holding 93,746 million cubic feet of water, for 

 the purpose of regulating the supply of water to the channel and 

 maintaining a navigable depth in summer. Near St. Anthony, 

 about 500 miles from the source, are rapids which have been 

 made use of obtaining water-power for working saw and flour 

 mills and other manufacturing industries. Steamboat navigation 

 commences near the junction of the Minnesota river, where the 

 river has fallen 870 feet, 548 miles from the source. 



A little above the junction with the Ohio, about 1400 miles 

 down, the water becomes heavily charged with sediment and the 

 country is subject to be flooded. The extreme range between 

 high and low water at St. Louis is 37 feet. The slope of the 

 water here falls six inches in a mile. Sand bars are numerous, 

 and although the discharge amounts to 35,000 cubic feet a 

 second in dry seasons there is not frequently more than four feet 

 over the bars. Works are being carried out along this length for 

 regulating the width of the channel and dredging away the bars 

 so as to secure a better navigable depth. Where the banks are 

 subject to excessive erosion they are protected by mattresses of 

 woven willows, and the banks graded by hydraulic action. A 

 description and illustration of this work was given in Nature 

 of December 19, 1896. Along this reach the river is exceedingly 

 crool|pd. Between Arkansas and Greenville the distance along 

 the liver is 40 miles, the air line being only 15 miles. It also 

 has great width, the banks, which are from 30 to 40 feet 

 high, being in places two miles apart. The maintenance of 

 these " levees " or banks is of vital importance to the surround- 

 ing country, as a breach would result in the inundation of 

 50,000 square miles of rich alluvial land. 



One of the greatest difficulties which the management and 

 the navigation has to contend with is the immense amount of 

 drift-wood carried down in floods. This wood, if not cleared 

 away, gets caught in the bends and accumulates, forming with 

 the alluvial matter an effective barrier to the flow of the water 

 and a source of danger to the banks. For the removal of this 

 drift-wood special vessels, called snag-boats, are employed, which 

 patrol the river and remove the snags. 



NO. 1639, VOL. 63] 



Dredgers of large type, and provided with very powerful 

 machinery, are in constant employment for removing sand bars 

 and shoals. The type now almost universally in use for this 

 purpose are worked by centrifugal pumps, which raise the sand 

 and in some cases deliver it over the banks. Where the 

 material is hard, cutters are provided at the end of the suction 

 pipes of the pumps, which loosen the clay or hard material 

 sufficiently to allow of its being sucked into the pipes. One of 

 the most recent of these machines is capable of raising more than 

 4000 cubic yards of material an hour, and is fitted with electric 

 light, machine shops, and all appliances necessary to repair the 

 machinery and keep it in going order. 



For the lower part of its course the river winds its way 

 through a vast delta, twisting and turning by numerous bends 

 until it extends its length to nearly double the point to point 

 length of the delta. This delta is 500 miles long, and from 

 30 to 40 miles in width, covering an area of 400,000 square 

 miles. It is composed of material transported by the current 

 and deposited in the estuary, which at one time extended from 

 the original outfall to the Gulf of Mexico. The river is still 

 pouring solid matter into the Gulf, where it is spread out in a 

 fan-like shape over a coast-line of 150 miles and is filling it up 

 at the rate of 362 million tons a year. Some idea of the 

 vastness of the silent operations of nature may be conceived 

 when the fact is considered that this solid matter consists of the 

 wearing away of the land through which the river flows, and 

 that some of it must have been transported a distance, of over 

 3000 miles ; and that if the whole of it had to be carried in boats 

 for half the total distance at the lowest rate at which heavy 

 material is carried on the inland waterways of America, or, say, 

 for one-tenth of a penny per ton per mile, the annual cost of 

 transport would amount to no less a sum than 238 millions of 

 pounds. 



The channel in the lower reach is narrow, not exceeding 

 half an mile in width, the depth in places exceeding 200 feet, 

 and everywhere sufficient to float large sea-going craft as 

 far as the junction of the Red river, a distance of more than 

 300 miles. 



On this length is situated the city of New Orleans, no miles 

 above the Gulf of Mexico. Ships of all nations reach this port. 

 Its wharves extend over fifteen miles of river front, and are 

 crowded with vessels of every description. Grain and cotton 

 form the chief item of export. 



As the river approaches the Gulf it is split up into three principal 

 channels. The smaller of these has been improved by training 

 walls made of mattresses and stone, which extend over the bar 

 out into the deep water of the Gulf for more than two miles. This 

 work was undertaken by Captain Eads, under contract with the 

 Government to provide, for a certain sum of money, a depth of 

 twenty-six feet at low water and to keep and maintain this 

 depth for a period which has now expired. 



The description of this mighty river above given will surely 

 warrant its being called the " Father of Waters." 



W. H. Wheeler. 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF AERIAL 

 LOCOMOTION} 



VyHILE history contains no record^ of any past age in which 

 • '^ men rode bicycles, the question of aerial locomotion has 

 occupied the thoughts of man from the days of the Egyptians, 

 to whom we are indebted for a representation of a man with 

 wings considerably resembling the gliding machine on which 

 Mr. Pilcher lost his life. Passing by the legend of Daedalus, 

 whose invention of sailing ships led to the tradition that he 

 attached wings to himself, we find in history numerous records, 

 some such as that of Dante of Perugia or the chronicle of 

 Busbequius, referring to gliding experiments which may not 

 improbably have been authentic, others describing machines by 

 which men have tried to raise themselves by their own exertions, 

 but without success, as exemplified by Besnier, the Marquis de 

 Bacqueville, Jacob Deghen, while a far larger number have 

 been handed down to us of designs of fantastic machines for 

 navigating the air, of a purely visionary character. In the latter 

 Category we must include in past times the grotesque figures 



1 Abstract of a Discourse delivered at the Royal Institution on Friday, 

 February 8, by Prof. G. H. Bryan, F. R.S. 



