164 
NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 
The river 
to-day. 
the great elms in the bottoms and the oaks 
on the bluffs were roaring with the rush of 
winds. There is still some charm of wildness 
left about it but its primitive glory has de- 
parted. The tall timber is gone, the back- 
lying prairies have known the plough, the 
tributary streams draining the broken ground 
run mud, and there is little purity now in the 
water that flows to the Mexican Gulf. Years 
ago the division line between the clear waters 
of the Mississippi and the clouded waters of 
Missouri, where they met at St. Louis, could be 
traced for miles, but now one stream is about 
as turbid as the other. Man is the prince of 
destroyers, and if there is one spot above all 
others where he has fairly revelled in destruc- 
tion it is western North America. 
But all the destruction and all the muddy 
rivers are not ours. The Hudson, the Sus- 
quehanna, the Connecticut, and many other 
American rivers are still comparatively pure. 
And there are fouled rivers in other countries. 
I have vivid memories of different summers 
spent beside the Thaies, the Seine, the 
Rhine, the Danube, and the Arno. The | 
Danube and the Rhine are always referred 
to as “‘blue” by the poets and the guide- 
