The Lower Mississippi presents another feature that should not be forgotten, and which sets forth a great design. Immense forests of cottonwood and ash are to be seen growing along its banks. These trees are of rapid growth, and afford excellent (in fact the best, with the exception of coal) fuel for steamers. Indeed, they constitute much the greater portion of wood consumed in river navigation. So suitable is the rich alluvion of the river banks to the growth of these trees, that in ten years they attain to a sufficient size for felling. Plantations lying uncultivated for a single year, in the second present a handsome young growth of cottonwood. This fact is now very well proven on the Mississippi; the war has ruined agricultural labor almost entirely. No apprehensions are ever felt by steamboat men on the subject of fuel; the supply is inexhaustible and reproducing. The other woods found upon the river, but not, let it be said, to the extent of the cottonwood or the ash, are the live and water oak, swamp dogwood, willow, myrtle, wild pecan, elm, and ash. The cypress tree is found in extensive forests back from the river in the swamps. This tree attains an enormous height, and is without branches until attaining the very top, and then they are short and crooked, presenting a very fine and sparse foliage. The wood of the cypress is very little used upon the river, not, perhaps, in consequence of its inferiority of quality, but the difficulty of access to it. In conclusion, we cannot withhold a few words upon the singular typical similarity between the appearance of vegetation upon its banks and the river itself. Gray forests of cypress, the blended foliage of the oak, the cottonwood, and the ash, with a charming intermixture of that beautiful parasitic evergreen, the mistletoe, above Vicksburg, suggest the blooming grandeur of the stream. Below, the appearance of a new parasite, the Spanish moss, draping the trees with a cold, hoary-looking vegetation, casts a melancholy and matured dignity upon the scene. Like the gray locks of age, it reminds the passer by of centuries gone, when the red savage in his canoe toiled upon its turbid flood; it recalls the day of discovery, when De Soto and La Salle sought its mighty torrent in search of gain, and found death; and now looms before us the noblest picture of all, the existence of a maturing civilization upon its banks. Associated thus with an ever-present suggestion of a remarkable and ever-forming antiquity, the Mississippi becomes indeed the wonder of waters. Ponce de Leon, that most romantic of early Spanish explorers, traversed the continent in search of a 'fountain of everlasting youth;' the powerful republic of the West, has _found_ in the 'Father of Waters' a fountain and a stream of everlasting, vigorous life, wealth, and convenience. SKETCHES OF AMERICAN LIFE AND SCENERY. IV.--MOUNTAIN WAYS. LUCY D----. Aunt Sarah, did you ever read the Declaration of Independence?