14 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



From the mouth of the Illinois River to Alton, a stretch of 

 sixteen miles, the shore on the Illinois side is a wall of cliffs from 

 100 to 150 feet in height, formerly, and in less degree still the 

 home of interesting birds with feeding grounds mostly on our 

 side of the river. There is some bottom land in the northern 

 portion of St. Louis Co., but from the City of St. Louis to the 

 city of Cape Girardeau very little lowland is found on our side, 

 as the river washes the foot of the bluffs nearly all along bluffs 

 which in many places attain the dignity of cliffs similar to those 

 above Alton on the Illinois side. At Cape Girardeau the Missis- 

 sippi enters the great alluvial plain, of which the seven counties 

 in the southeastern corner of Missouri form a part, and through 

 which the mighty river, together with the waters of the Ohio 

 winds in a wide belt with frequent changes of its channel and the 

 formation of cut-offs, islands and lakes. 



The most pronounced physiographic area of Missouri is the 

 swampy region of the southeast. There, remnants of the most 

 magnificent forests are still in existence, though continually 

 encroached upon, and, since the region is now traversed by several 

 railroads, it can be only a question of a few years when but a 

 shadow of its sublime beauty will be left. It is the home of the 

 Bald Cypress, the Water Tupelo, the Sweet Gum and Planer- 

 tree ; a paradise for the ornithologist as well as the botanist who 

 finds there representatives of the Floridian and Texan floras; 

 a bonanza for the herpetologist and entomologist. 



Terminated northward by abrupt bluffs along a north-east 

 south-west line from Cape Girardeau to where the Current River 

 crosses the state line in Ripley Co., the alluvial plain covers about 

 seven counties with an elevation of less than 400 feet above sea 

 level and from ten to twenty feet above the Mississippi River at 

 low- water. A number of rivers and bayous, connected in the 

 eastern portion with the Mississippi, in the western with the St. 

 Francis River, divide into ridges and islands and yearty inundate 

 a large portion of the area when high water overflows their shal- 

 low beds for weeks and months at a time. Thus, Little River, 

 which in very dry summers has hardly enough water to carry a 

 canoe, reaches often a width of from six to seven^miles; this is 

 also the width of the St. Francis River with its parallel-running 

 sloughs or arms. &/j 



Peninsula of Missouri is called that part of the southeast which 

 extends from latitude 36 30' south to 36. With the exception 

 of a narrow strip of sandy ridge between Little and St. Francis 



