The river has two regular floods every year, one usually in April and the other in June. The first flood is short, sharp, and often very destructive. The second flood is of longer duration and carries an immensely greater quantity of water, but does less damage than the first. The April flood is due to the spring freshets along the immediate valley as the snow melts off and the first rains come. The June rise comes primarily from the melting snows in the mountains. The great and exceptional floods, however, are not due to these regular causes, but to periods of long and excessive precipitation in the lower portions of the valley. The slope of the river in the lower half of its course is less than a foot to the mile, and the velocity of its current varies from two to ten miles per hour, depending upon the stage of the water. [Sidenote: BEAUTY OF THE RIVER.] From an æsthetic point of view, the Missouri River has an unenviable reputation. People who never see it except in crossing railroad bridges, from which they look down into a mass of muddy, eddying water, are liable to compare it unfavorably with other important streams. But to him who is fortunate enough to travel upon it, and study it in all its phases, it is not only an attractive stream, but one of great scenic beauty. As seen in its more placid periods, near morning or evening, when the slanting rays of the sun show the water mainly by reflection, robbing it of its muddy tinge, and replacing it by a crimson hue or silver glimmer that stretches away toward the horizon, cut off again and again by the bends of the river, but ever and anon reappearing until lost in the distance, there are few scenes in nature that appeal more strongly to the eye of the artist. Again, in its less peaceful moods, when the persistent prairie winds blow day after day without ceasing, there is a peculiar attractiveness about the weird scene. In all directions, as far as the eye can reach, the air is filled with clouds of sand, drifting along the naked bars, and changing their forms almost as rapidly as does the water those in the bed of the river. The willows and cottonwoods bend complainingly before the blast. The river is lashed into foam, and often becomes so tempestuous that rowboats cannot live in it, while larger craft, making a virtue of necessity, lie moored to the shore until the wind has abated its fury. [Sidenote: PRAIRIE STORMS.]