"Mississippi...This Mighty River"
At the beginning of Volume I of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America published in 1835, he describes the Mississippi River, it navigability and its surrounding geology and ecosystems. The Mississippi River had an important role in explorations, settlements, and commerce in early U.S. History and a military and strategic importance during times of conflict.
Spelling is original.
This vast territory, however, forms a single valley, one side of which descends gradually from the rounded summits of the Alleghanies, while the other rises in an uninterrupted course toward the tops of the Rocky Mountains. At the bottom of the valley flows an immense river, into which the various streams issuing from the mountains fall from all parts. In memory of their native land, the French formerly called this river the St. Louis. The Indians...have named it the Father of Waters, or the Mississippi.
The Mississippi takes its source above the limit of the two great regions...not far from the highest point of the table-land where they unite...The course of the Mississippi is at first dubious; it winds several times toward the north, from whence it rose; and, at length, after having been delayed in lakes and marshes, it flows slowly onward to the south. Sometimes quietly gliding along the argillaceous bed which Nature has assigned to it, sometimes swollen by storms, the Mississippi waters 2,500 miles in its course. At the distance of 1,364 miles from its mouth this river attains an average depth of fifteen feet; and it is navigated by vessels of 300 tons burden for a course of nearly 500 miles. Fifty-seven large navigable rivers contribute to swell the waters of the Mississippi; among others, the Missouri, which traverses a space of 2,500 miles, the Arkansas of 1,300 miles, the Red River 1,000 miles in length—viz., the Illinois, the St. Peter's, the St. Francis, and the Moingona—besides a countless multitude of rivulets which unite from all parts their tributary streams.
The valley which is watered by the Mississippi seems formed to be the bed of this mighty river, which, like a god of antiquity, dispenses both good and evil in its course. On the shores of the stream Nature displays an inexhaustible fertility; in proportion as you recede from its banks, the powers of vegetation languish, the soil becomes poor, and the plants that survive have a sickly growth. Nowhere have the great convulsions of the globe left more evident traces than in the valley of the Mississippi; the whole aspect of the country shows the powerful effects of water, both by its fertility and by its barrenness. The waters of the primeval ocean accumulated enormous beds of vegetable mould in the valley, which they levelled as they retired. Upon the right shore of the river are seen immense plains, as smooth as if the husbandman had passed over them with his roller. As you approach the mountains the soil becomes more and more unequal and sterile; the ground is, as it were, pierced in a thousand places by primitive rocks, which appear like the bones of skeleton whose flesh is partly consumed. The surface of the earth is covered with a granite sand and huge irregular masses of stone, among which a few plants force their growth, and give the appearance of a green field covered with the ruins of a vast edifice. These stones and this sand discover, on examination, a perfect analogy with those which compose the arid and broken summits of the Rocky Mountains. The flood of waters which washed the soil to the bottom of the valley afterward carried away portions of the rocks themselves; and these, dashed and bruised against the neighbouring cliffs, were left scattered like wrecks at their feet. The valley of the Mississippi is, upon the whole, the most magnificent dwelling-place prepared by God for man's abode; and yet it may be said that at present it is but a mighty desert.
Source:
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, translated by Henry Reeve (1835 originally, 1899 edition consulted), 2-4.
