The Mississippi proper rises in the State of Minnesota, about 47 deg. and some minutes north latitude, and 94 deg. 54' longitude west, at an elevation of sixteen hundred and eighty feet above the level of the Gulf of Mexico, and distant from it two thousand eight hundred and ninety-six miles, its utmost length, upon the summit of Hauteurs de Terre, the dividing ridge between the rivulets confluent to itself and those to the Red River of the North. Its first appearance is a tiny pool, fed by waters trickling from the neighboring hills. The surplus waters of this little pool are discharged by a small brook, threading its way among a multitude of very small lakes, until it gathers sufficient water, and soon forms a larger lake. From here a second rivulet, impelled along a rapid declination, rushes with violent impetuosity for some miles, and subsides in Lake Itasca. Thence, with a more regular motion, until it reaches Lake Cass, from whence taking a mainly southeasterly course, a distance of nearly seven hundred miles, it reaches the Falls of St. Anthony. Here the river makes in a few miles a descent of sixteen feet. From this point to the Gulf, navigation is without further interruption, and the wonders of the Mississippi begin. It is not possible to give, with complete exactness, the outlines of the immense valley drained by the Mississippi, yet, with the assistance of accurate surveys, we can make an approximation, to say the least, which will convey some idea of the physical necessity of the river to the vast area through the centre of which it takes its course. We will say: From the highest point of land between the mouth of the Atchafalaya and Mississippi Rivers, dividing the headwaters of their confluents; thence along the dividing ridge of tributaries confluent to the Sabine and other Texas streams from those of the Red, in a north-westerly course, to the Rocky Mountains, thence taking a line separating the headwaters of the Red, Arkansas, and tributary streams, on the east, from the Rio Grande and tributaries toward the south, and the Colorado _Miles._ toward the west, say, 1,300 Thence, pursuing the dividing summit of the Rocky Mountains, to the Marias, tributary to the Missouri, in Dakota, say, 700 Thence, including the headwaters of the Missouri, and taking direction southeasterly, dividing the tributaries of the Red River of the North from those of the Missouri to the source of the Minnesota; thence northeasterly, dividing the rivulets of the head lakes, Itasca, Cass, etc., from those confluent to the Red River of the North, separating the headwaters of the St. Croix from currents tributary to Lake Superior; thence embracing the confluent streams to the Mississippi in Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, and Indiana, to the Kankakee branch of the Illinois, say, 2,000