or THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE 



MISSISSIPPI VALLEY, 



WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE NAVIGATION OF THE 



OHIO AND OTHER RIVERS. 



There are few studies which exhibit beneficent design in a more impressive 

 form than that which unfolds the adaptation of the physical structure of the 

 earth to the wants of man. The mountains, plains, and valleys, the harmony 

 of coloring, and all that appertains to the beauty of structure, speak to the eye 

 and require no aid from science to impress the imagination. The fertihty 

 of the soil supphes the necessaries of life, and calls for acknowledgment and 

 praise. The stores of minei'al wealth, formed for ages in advance, to be 

 called forth in due season to aid in the support of industry, the developments of 

 art, and the progress of civilization, are so essential to all the movements of the 

 machinery of society, that the wisdom which ruled their formation and prepared 

 the treasure could scarcely fail to inspire a tribute of admiration. 



But the great features of the physical formation of the earth, the distribution 

 of hills and mountain ranges, on which the clouds may break and condense into 

 rain ; the arrangement of the gentle plains that spread out from the base of each 

 hill and mountain, until they intersect other plains which spread out from other 

 hills and other mountains, and form channels at their intersection for the drain- 

 age of the surplus water shed from the adjacent slopes; the adaptation of these 

 valleys by a happy combination of the dip towards the ocean, the area drained, 

 and the development of the stream to navigation and the wants of commerce, 

 and the convenience of cultivated man — these are the studies of science, which 

 require the aid of art and its improvements. 



There are few divisions of the earth which offer more beautiful illustrations 

 of this adaptation of natural means to an obvious purpose, than the physical 

 geography of that portion of the United States which lies between the Great 

 Art. 4. — 1 



