The current of this river is very rapid, and the sand bars are (like 
the billows of the ovean) forever rolling in the current, and shifting 
from place to place, and when with the progress of the current they 
leave the river, others will follow close behind. This river drains a 
country whose extent is more than three times greater than that 
watered by any other river of the United States, including the 
Mississippi, above its junction with the Missouri. It is not as large as 
the Ohio or Tennessee rivers, and its freshets make very little im- 
pression on the Mississippi, as far down as the Natchez basin. It is 
the Ohio, that compels the Mississippi to call to her assistance, her 
thousand reservoirs, and her extensive vale, to retain the waters un- 
bosomed by this most beautiful river, her magnificent tributary. 
When the prairies of that immense region lying on both sides of 
the Missouri, and extending quite to the Rocky Mountains, shall 
ished, what will be the appearance, and size of this river? 
The same question will apply to the Arkansas and Red River 
It should be remarked, that the country bordering on these rivers, 
is more level, than that on the Ohio. Hence their waters will not 
be extricated so readily ; but nevertheless their bounds must be ex= 
tended to an incredible degree. When all the water that falls on 
this great country, and which now serves to replenish those mighty 
rivers, that roll through dark and gloomy forests, and through inter- 
minable deserts, shall be turned in their courses, and eaused tokeep 
as much above ground as the waters of the Ohio; the Missouri 
will then indeed become vast, and her freshets will be truly terrific. 
Judging from the observations ef more than twenty five years, we 
will venture to say, that the Missouri must, by and by, discharge 
in a given period, twenty times as much water as now. 
OPINIONS OF MR. DUNBAR, 
In the 6th vol. of the American Philosophical Transactions of 
Philad. may be seen “ A description of the Mississippi and its delta,” 
by. Mr. Dunbar, in which, when speaking of the formation of the 
delta, he remarks. “When we survey this immense work, formed 
by the hand of nature, we cannot. accord with the opinions of cer- 
tain visionary philosophers, who have been pleased to amuse them- 
selves with the pretended infantile state of our continent, compared 
to their trans-atlantic world; but on the contrary, we must grant fo 
it an incalculable antiquity.” If Mr. Dunbar had been apprised of 
the existence and extent of the. Natchez basin, that he sat and 
