Author: Phil E. Chappell

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-06

Total Pages: 112

ISBN-13: 9781330807446

Excerpt from A History of the Missouri River: Discovery of the River by the Jesuit Explorers; Indian Tribes Along the River; Early Navigation and Craft Used; The Rise and Fall of Steamboating There is but little doubt that had the Missouri river been discovered before the Mississippi the name of the latter would have applied to both streams, and the Missouri would have been considered the main stream and the upper Mississippi the tributary. From the head of the Missouri, west of Yellowstone Park, to its mouth, as it meanders, is a distance of 2,546 miles; and to the Gulf of Mexico the Missouri-Mississippi has a length of 4,220 miles. The Missouri is longer than the entire Mississippi, and more than twice as long as that part of the latter stream above their confluence. It drains a watershed of 580,000 square miles, and its mean total annual discharge is estimated to be twenty cubic miles, or at a mean-rate of 94,000 cubic feet per second, which is more than twice the quantity of water discharged by the Upper Mississippi. It is by far the boldest, the most rapid and the most turbulent of the two streams, and its muddy water gives color to the Lower Mississippi river to the Gulf of Mexico. By every rule of nomenclature, the Missouri, being the main stream and the Upper Mississippi the tributary, the name of the former should have been given precedence, and the great river - the longest in the world - should have been called "Missouri" from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.