a channel through the everlasting hills, it comes rushing out through the vast prairie-plains at their base, it is the same dark, wild torrent as at its turbid embouchure. And, strange to tell, after roaming thousands of miles, and receiving into its bosom streams equal to itself, and hundreds of lesser, though powerful tributaries, it still retains, unaltered, in depth or breadth, that volume which at last it rolls into its mighty rival! Torrent after torrent, river after river, pour in their floods, yet the giant stream rolls majestically onward unchanged! At the village of St. Charles its depth and breadth is the same as at the Mandan villages, nearly two thousand miles nearer its source.[164] The same inexplicable phenomenon characterizes the Mississippi, and, indeed, all the great rivers of the West; for _inexplicable_ the circumstance yet remains, however plausible the theories alleged in explanation. With regard to the Missouri, it is urged that the porous, sandy soil of its broad alluvions absorbs, on the principle of capillary attraction, much of its volume, conveying it by subterraneous channels to the Mississippi; and of this latter stream it is asserted that large quantities of its waters are taken up by the innumerable bayous, lakes, and lagoons intersecting the lower region of its course; and thus, unperceived, they find their way to the gulf. The navigation of the Missouri is thought to be the most hazardous and difficult of any of the Western rivers, owing to its mad, impetuous current, to the innumerable obstructions in its bed, and the incessant variation of its channel.[165] Insurance and pilotage {252} upon this river are higher than on others; the season of navigation is briefer, and steamers never pursue their course after dusk. Its vast length and numerous tributaries render it liable, also, to frequent floods, of which three are expected every year. The chief of these takes place in the month of June, when the heaped-up snows of the Rocky Mountains are melted, and, having flowed thousands of miles through the prairies, reach the Mississippi. The ice and snows of the Alleghanies, and the wild-rice lakes of the far Upper Mississippi, months before have reached their destination, and thus a general inundation, unavoidable had the floods been simultaneous, is prevented by Providence. The alluvions of the Missouri are said to be higher than, and not so broad as, those of the Mississippi; yet their extent is constantly varying by the violence of the current, even more than those of the latter stream. Many years ago the flourishing town of Franklin was completely torn away from its foundations, and its inhabitants were forced to flee to the adjacent heights; and the bottom opposite St. Charles and at numerous other places has, within the few years past, suffered astonishing changes.[166] Opposite the town now flow the waters of the river where once stood farms and orchards.