GO NARRATIVE, &c. 



its tributaries of the first, and the second and the third class, is so 

 large, that it would furnish a labor of some research, to determine 

 it. The Missouri, the Ohio, and the Arkansas, are of the noblest 

 class. Whoever lias stood at the junction of these streams, as 

 the writer has done, must have been impressed with an idea of 

 magnitude and power, which words are incapable of conveying. 

 The broadest parts of its channel lie in the central portions of 

 its valley. Its depth is great in all its lower parts, and increases 

 as it flows, on to the Gulf, and its general descent and velocity 

 are such as to appear very striking characteristics.* Noble 

 views arrest the eye of the observer, in every part of its diver- 

 sified course. Originating in a heavy and extensive bed of di- 

 luvial soil, superimposed upon primitive strata, it soon wears its 

 channel down to the latter, and after running over them for sev- 

 eral hundred miles, plunges at length, at the Falls of St. Antho- 

 ny, over the carboniferous limestone formation, which is so pre- 

 valent and so valuable for its mineral deposites, below that point. 

 This is finally succeeded by diluvial and alluvial banks, the lat- 

 ter of which are semi-annually enriched by fresh deposits, and 

 exhibit a delta as broad and as exuberant as the Nile. Like 

 the latter, it has its cataracts in the Falls of St. Anthony and 

 Pukaigama, and in numerous lesser leaps and cascades, where 

 its current is tossed into foam and threatens destruction to the 

 navigation. Such are its physical traits, and these enough in 

 their character, magnitude, and variety to lead our contempla- 

 tions irresistibly " through nature up to nature's God." 



Having gratified our curiosity in Itasca Lake, we prepared to 

 leave the island, but did not feel inclined to quit the scene without 

 leaving some memorial, however frail, of our visit. The men 

 were directed to fell a few trees at the head of the island, there- 



* From the data, above given, the descent of the Mississippi, will average a 

 fraction over five inches, per mile, a result not essentially different from that fur- 

 nished by the data, which I submitted in my Narratiye Journal in 1820, but which 

 was differently stated from haste and inadvertence. For a prompt notice of the 

 error, I feel indebted to Hamilton Fulton, Esqr., who, soon after the appearance of 

 the work, wrote to my publishers, on the subject. 



