A MISSOURI RIVER COMMISSION. 55 



in use. At first the railroads were considered merely tributary to the water lines ; 

 but now the railroads have gained in prestige until the river has lost its commerce 

 and has become merely tributary to the railroads. 



The people of this valley are beginning to appreciate the fact that it is a 

 costly luxury to ignore the plans of nature, and now, more than ever before, 

 they are considering the international features of this great river. 



The language of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of 

 Daniel Ball, lo Wallace, 557, fitly applies to this river. The court said : "Those 

 rivers must be regarded as public, navigable rivers in law which are navigable in 

 fact. And they are navigable in fact when they are susceptible of being used in 

 their ordinary condition as highways for commerce over which trade and travel 

 are or may be conducted in the customary modes of trade and travel on water. 

 And they constitute navigable waters of the United States, within the meaning 

 of the acts of Congress, in contradistinction to the navigable waters of the States, 

 when they form in their ordinary condition, by themselves or by uniting with 

 other waters, a continued highway over which commerce is or may be carried on 

 with other States or foreign countries in the customary modes in which such 

 commerce is conducted by water. 



This is the legal aspect in which such rivers as the Missouri are viewed by 

 our highest supreme judiciary. 



The case is well presented in its scientific and economic aspect in the follow- 

 ing extracts taken from the letter of the Secretary of War of February 17, 1881, 

 " in relation to the improvement of the Missouri River," transmitting to the 

 House of Representatives a report from Major Suter of the Engineer Corps, 

 upon the improvement of this river, as follows : 



"The importance of the subject can hardly be overestimated, as this river 

 is the longest of any in the United States, and is with the exception of the Ohio, 

 the largest tributary of the Mississippi. Its channel length from its sources in the 

 Rocky Mountains to its junction with the Mississippi near St. Louis, is probably 

 something over 3,000 miles, and it brings forward the drainage of an area of 

 572,672 square miles. It is navigable for nearly its whole length, for the portion 

 above the Great Falls, near Fort Benton, is already provided with several small 

 steamers. Its tributaries, though often of great length, are not of great size, 

 and are rarely navigable in their present condition. 



The country through which the Missouri flows is mostly one of a small rainfall, 

 so that its really large discharge is due to the great area of its drainage basin and 

 the mountain snows and ice near its headwaters. Its most salient and striking 

 features are the remarkable impetuosity of its current, and its slope, which is con- 

 siderable for so large a stream. The rapidity of the current and the general in- 

 stability of its banks and bed give rise to the excessive turbidity of its waters, 

 which have earned for it the title of the "Big Muddy." It is, in fact, the great 

 silt-carrier of the country, and the enormous mass of sediment which it brings 

 forward forms the great bulk of that received by the Mississippi from its tributa- 

 ries. Its influence upon the main river is most marked ; indeed it is its proto- 



