VIEWS OF LOUISIANA. 
m 
the great reservoir with as much majesty as the Amazon, or the 
La Piatte, but the Mississippi may challenge any of those rivers 
for the extent of its navigation and the quality of habitable and 
fertile soil on his border, and on the borders of his “ thousand 
Sons. 5 ’ 
The alluvions, or rather immense tracts of country formed 
by this river, constitute its most remarkable feature; proving 
incontestably an antiquity equal at least to that of the old 
world. These constitute a valley on an average thirty miles, 
wiue from the mouth of the Ohio, to Red river, where 1 consi¬ 
der the Delta as commencing on the western side. This valley is 
confined by what may be termed, as distinguished from the al¬ 
luvions, primitive ground. The river is thought to be approach¬ 
ing in its general course the upland or primitive ground, on the 
eastern side; it is certain that it washes the upland in ten or 
twelve places, in the distance before mentioned, and seldom or 
ever recedes from it more than ten miles: on the western side it 
approaches the upland but in one place, a few miles below the 
river St. Francis, and that within a quarter of a mile: it after¬ 
wards in no place comes nearer than twenty miles. The water 
which issues from it, on this side, during the floods, returns into 
it again by the St. Francis, Arkansas, and Red river, with more 
ease than on the eastern side above Iberville and Manchac; but 
immense quantities of water on both sides remain stagnant in 
swamps and lakes. Belov/ this, the water is carried off to the 
sea, by the numerous out-lets on both sides; the primitive ground 
diverging on either hand'and leaving a larger space, eighty or 
ninety miles in width. There are the most evident proofs that 
the Mississippi, has at different periods meandered in a thousand 
channels, still visi ble, in the valley between the primitive ground 
on either hand. There are lakes of considerable extent which 
have much the appearance of the river, and the ridges of high 
ground every where through this alluvion shew that they once 
constituted its banks; these ridges, from the accumulation of ve¬ 
getable matter, have become even higher than the present banks, 
and are very rarely inundated.* The banks of what are called 
* It is a common idea that the Mississippi runs upon a ridge; but 
this is easily explained when we recollect, that the alluvions even of the 
