NAVIGABILITY OF THE MISSOURI. 
233 
land, Glasgow, Brunswick, and other points ; and the western below St. Charles, at Jefferson city, 
Boonville, Howard’s Landing, Lexington, Camden, Liberty Landing, &c. The two continuing 
parallel to each other, and consequently diverging from the river between the points above 
mentioned. 
Besides these characteristics, I will mention that the coal measures are the principal geological 
formation near the mouth of the Missouri, the magnesian limestone near Jefferson city, and the 
carboniferous limestone and coal measures from Howard’s Landing upwards. 
The town of Independence, not far below the mouth of the Kansas, and situated in a bend of 
which the arc is twelve miles and the chord three miles long, is connected by travelled roads 
with Santa Fe and with Fort Laramie and the South Pass. Kansas, near the mouth of the 
river of that name, is also so connected. 
Between Fort Leavenworth and the mouth of the Missouri, the principal tributaries are the 
Osage, Grand river, and the Kansas. The first is about three hundred and fifty yards wide at 
its mouth, but a little wider just above. It is navigable six months in the year for about two 
hundred miles, or to a point thirty miles beyond Warsaw, although steamboats have, in very high 
water, been to Harmony station, which is beyond the frontier of the State. Grand river is about 
two hundred yards wide at its mouth, and is navigable for steamboats, although the interests of 
trade do not now cause it to be used for that purpose. Kansas river unites with the Missouri 
at an angle of about 150' . A low bottom, nearly a mile wide and several miles long, occurs 
just below its mouth. The angle between the two streams was probably, in former days, about 
80° ; but a deposition having taken place at the mouth of the Kansas in the same manner that 
islands are continually forming in the Missouri, and being partly caused by the difference in 
velocity of the two streams, the Kansas has shifted its channel to the north. It is about 300 yards 
wide at its mouth, and, with the exception of two sets of rapids, open for navigation for about 150 
or 200 miles. The rapids, I was informed, could be improved at a moderate cost. Flowing 
as it does through a tract of country which is not in any other way accessible to steamboats, and 
which possesses many resources, the Kansas must assume some importance at a future day. I 
did not see its valley above its mouth, but, having formerly travelled over the country for some 
hundreds of miles west of Fort Leavenworth, can say that the valleys of the streams, for at least 
150 miles west of that post, are favorable for agricultural or grazing purposes; and from their 
proximity to the Kansas, as well as from information received, I would infer that its valley has the 
same advantages. 
In our ascent of the river, we proceeded at the rate of about five miles an hour, halting nearly 
two hours every day for the purpose of procuring wood. The ordinary price of this along the 
banks of the river was from two to two and a half dollars per cord, according to quality; and the 
consumption of it by the steamboat at the rate of about two cords per hour. We reached 
Howard’s Landing, five miles above Boonville, at 12 m. on the 24th of May, and halted there 
until nine o’clock in the evening, for the purpose of repairing some part of the boat’s machinery. 
We found the current very rapid at Brunswick, but met with no other obstruction at this point. 
There was formerly a large island opposite this town, and it has not yet entirely disappeared. 
The current was observed to be more rapid between the island and right bank shore than next 
the outer side of the elbow. On the night of the 25th and on the 2Gth, above Brunswick, the 
steamboat was much delayed by sand-bars. In running on one of these, the ordinary events 
which transpire in rapid succession are the harsh and grating noise heard, the trembling motion 
communicated to the steamboat while being brought to a state of rest, the inclination from stem 
to stern which it is at the same time caused to assume, the ringing of bells to stop the engines 
and to cause them to work backwards; and then, this failing to relieve the boat from its awkward 
position, the resort to the double set of spars, pulle} 7 s and tackling, with which every Missouri 
river steamboat is furnished. The discovery in season of a continuous unobstructed channel is 
generally easily made by the skilful pilot when there is nothing to interfere with his vision; 
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