timber carried down from the upper parts of the river.
At this place its navigation is effectually obstructed, except in a high stage of water, when keel-boats of ten or fifteen tons burden may pass it through devious channels, or bayoux, and ascend several miles above. That part of the river situated above the Raft is rendered impassable for boats of burden, by shoals and sand-bars in a moderate stage of water.9
The Washita, tributary to Red river, is navigable many miles. That portion of it situated within the valley of the Mississippi, denominated Black river, admits of constant navigation for boats of burden. White river is navigable in a moderate stage of water between three and four hundred miles. Of the rivers tributary to the Missouri, it is remarkable, that their mouths are generally blocked up with mud, after the subsiding of the summer freshet of that river, which usually takes place in the month of July. The freshets of the more southerly tributaries are discharged early in the season, and wash from their mouths the sand and mud previously deposited therein, leaving them free from obstructions. These freshets having subsided, the more northerly branches discharge their floods, formed by the melting of the snow, at a later period. The Missouri being thus swollen, the mud of its waters is driven up the mouth of its tributaries. These streams having no more freshets to expel it, their mouths remain thus obstructed till the ensuing spring.10
The St. Peter has its rise in a small lake about three miles in circumference, at the base of a remarkable ridge, distinguished by the name of Coteau des Prairies. It enters the Mississippi nine miles below the falls of St. Anthony. Its length in all its windings is about five hundred miles. Its course is exceedingly serpentine, and is interrupted by several rocky ridges, extending across the bed of the river and occasioning falls of considerable descent. During the times of spring freshets and floods, this river is navigable for boats from its mouth to the head of Big Stone Lake about fifteen miles from its sources. For a distance of about forty miles on the lower part of the river, it is from sixty to eighty yards only wide, and navigable for pirogues and canoes in all stages of the water; higher up, its navigation is obstructed in low water by numerous shoals and rapids. The aggregate descent of the St. Peter may be estimated at about one hundred and fifty feet, the general level of the country at its source having an elevation of about fifty feet above the river. The chief of its tributaries is the Blue-earth river, which flows in from the south a hundred miles west of the Mississippi by a mouth fifty yards in width. It is chiefly noted for the blue clay which the Indians procure upon its banks, and which is much employed in painting their faces and other parts of their bodies. The river St. Peter’s enters the Mississippi behind a large island, which is probably three miles in circumference, and is covered with the most luxuriant growth of sugar-maple, elm, ash, oak, and walnut. At the point of embouchure it is one hundred and fifty yards in width, with a depth of ten or fifteen feet. Its waters are transparent, and present a light blue tint on looking upon the stream. From this circumstance the Indians have given it the name of Clear-water river.
Red River of the north rises near the sources of the St. Peter’s; and by a northern and winding course runs nearly two hundred miles in our territorial limits; and then passes into the British dominions of Upper Canada, and empties into Lake Winnepeck. Its principal branches are Red Lake river and Moose river, the latter of which streams rises within a mile of fort Mandan on the Missouri. Red river is a broad, deep, and very interesting stream, abounding with fish, and the country along its banks with elk and buffaloes.
The name Ohio is an Indian appellation, signifying ‘the beautiful river.’ This epithet is not bestowed upon it for the whole of its course, but commences at the confluence of the two principal streams, at Pittsburg; above the junction it is called the Alleghany. The remotest source of the Alleghany is in the state of Pennsylvania, in north latitude forty-one degrees and forty-five minutes, and west longitude seventy-eight degrees. It is composed of two small streams. At Pittsburg, the Alleghany being joined by the Monongahela, the confluent stream receives the appellation of the Ohio. The Monongahela is formed by the confluence of two streams, both rising from the Alleghany chain, in the north-west angle of Virginia, and running parallel to each other for sixty miles in a direct line. The absolute course of the Monongahela is more than two hundred miles, but not above one hundred and thirty in a direct line from south to north. It seems a larger and deeper stream at Pittsburg than the Alleghany, which in the dry season has not above seven feet water where deepest. The waters of the Alleghany are always clear and limpid, while those of the Monongahela, on the contrary, become muddy and turbid, whenever there are a few days of successive rain in that part of the Alleghany Mountains where it rises. Each of the streams is four hundred yards wide at the conflux; and after the junction, the united stream is more enlarged in depth than in breadth.
The Ohio, formed by the junction of the Monongahela and Alleghany, appears to be rather a continuation of the former than the latter, which arrives at the confluence in an oblique direction. From Pittsburg to the mouth of the Ohio is one thousand and thirty-three miles by the course of the stream. It receives a vast number of tributary streams on both sides, in its progress to the Mississippi. For the space of three hundred miles below Pittsburg, the Ohio runs between two ridges of hills, rising from three hundred to four hundred feet in height. These appear frequently undulated at their summits, but at other times seem to be perfectly level. They sometimes recede, and sometimes approach the banks of the river, and have their direction parallel to that of the Alleghany chain. These ridges gradually recede farther down the river, till they disappear from the view of those who descend the Ohio. It is not till this river has burst its passage through a transverse chain, at the rapids, near Louisville, that it rolls its waters, through a level and expanded country, as far as the Mississippi. The general appearance of the river is beautiful, placid, gentle and transparent, except in the times of high water. There are two seasons of periodical inundations; namely, winter and spring. According to some, the vernal inundations of this river commence in the latter end of March, and subside in July; and, according to others, they commence early in February, and subside in May. It must be observed, however, that this period is forwarded or retarded as the rivers thaw sooner or later, which may reconcile these apparently discordant statements.
The Ohio is then swelled to a prodigious height, varying in different places, as it is more or less expanded in breadth. It is a favorable circumstance for the country in the upper course of the Ohio, that it has very high and steep banks; having gradually hollowed out for itself a deep and comparatively narrower bed, being, like all its southern tributary streams, inclosed as it were in a groove between them, which prevents the general level of the land from being overflowed for many miles, and thereby rendered marshy and unwholesome, as in the lower Missouri, and in the lower part of the Ohio. Yet high as these banks are, the Ohio is both a dangerous and troublesome neighbor to the towns which are not sufficiently far removed from them. That part of the town of Marietta situated at the junction of the Muskingum with the Ohio, though elevated forty-five feet above the ordinary level of the stream, has been twice inundated, and consequently abandoned by the inhabitants. The town of Portsmouth, at the mouth of the Great Sciota, and two hundred and eighteen miles below Marietta by water, though elevated sixty feet above the usual surface of the river, is also subjected to the same misfortune, which has materially affected the prosperity of the place. At Cincinnati, the breadth of the river is five hundred and thirty-five yards, and the banks fifty feet in perpendicular height, yet these are annually overflowed. The winter floods commence in the middle of October, and continue to the latter end of December. Sometimes, in the course of the summer, abundant rains fall among the Alleghany Mountains, by which the Ohio is suddenly raised, but such occurrences are rare. In the times of these two periodical floods, which taken together last for near half the year, ships drawing twelve feet water may sail with perfect ease from Pittsburg to New Orleans, a distance of near two thousand and two hundred miles. In these seasons the passage to the falls may be accomplished in nine or ten days, but it is generally effected in twelve days. The difficulty of navigating the Ohio during the dry season, is only confined to the upper part of its course, or between Pittsburg and Limestone, a space of four hundred and twenty-five miles by water; and this, not so much owing to the shallowness of the stream, as to its being divided by islands; for the depth of the Monongahela branch of the Ohio
