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 (Classic Reprint)

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-M ississippi 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 meanrate 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.(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.) About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made to accurately preserve the original format of each page whilst digitally enhancing the aged text.