‘The water in this part of the river cannot be drank until it has been set aside to allow the mud to settle. The distance from the mouth of the Missouri to the gulf of Mexico is one thousand two hundred and twenty miles, in the course of which it receives from the west, the Merrimac, St. Francis, White, Arkansas, and Red rivers; and from the east, the Kaskaskia, Great Muddy, Ohio, Wolf, and Yazoo. This part of the river is more particularly characterized by snags and sawyers, falling-in banks and islands, sand-bars and mud-banks; and a channel which is shifting by every flood, and of such extreme velocity, that it was formerly thought it could not be navigated by vessels propelled with sails. Subsequent experience has shown this conjecture to be unfounded, although a strong wind is required for its ascent. It is daily navigated in ships of from four hundred to eight hundred tons burden, from the Balize to New Orleans, a distance of one hundred miles, and could be ascended higher were it necessary; but the commerce of the river above New Orleans is now carried on, in a great measure, by steam-boats. The width of the river opposite St. Louis is one mile; it is somewhat less at New Orleans, and still less at its disembochure. A bar at its mouth prevents ships drawing more than eighteen feet water from entering. This river is occupied by different bands of the Chippeway Indians from its sources, to the Buffalo Plains in the vicinity of the upper St. Francis, the precise limit being a matter of dispute, and the cause of the long war between them and the Sioux. The Sioux bands claim from thence to the Prairie des Chiens, and the Foxes and Sacs to the river Desmoines. From this vicinity to the gulf of Mexico the Indian title has been extinguished by the United States’ government, either through purchase, treaty, or conquest, and we have now the complete control of this river and all its tributary streams, with the exception of the upper part of Red river. The wild rice is not found on the waters of the Mississippi south of the forty-first degree of north latitude, nor the Indian reed, or cane, north of the thirty-eighth. These two productions characterize the extremes of this river. It has been observed by McKenzie, that the former is hardly known, or at least does not come to maturity, north of the fiftieth degree of north latitude. The alligator is first seen below the junction of the Arkansas. The paroquet is found as far north as the mouth of the Illinois, and flocks have occasionally been seen as high as Chicago. The name of this river is derived from the Algonquin language, one of the original tongues of our continent, which is now spoken nearly in its primeval purity by the different bands of Chippeways.’