Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/22

12 in herons, cranes, ducks, brants, geeſe, and ſwans. Its paſſage is commanded by a fort eſtabliſhed by this ſtate, five miles below the mouth of the Ohio, and ten miles above the Carolina boundary. The Miſſouri, ſince the treaty of Paris, the Illinois and northern branches of the Ohio, ſince the ceſſion to Congreſs, are no longer within our limits. Yet having been ſo heretofore, and ſtill opening to us channels of extenſive communication with the weſtern and north-weſtern country, they ſhall be noted in their order.

The Miſſouri is, in fact, the principal river, contributing more to the common ſtream than does the Miſſiſippi, even after its junction with the Illinois. It is remarkably cold, muddy, and rapid. Its overflowings are conſiderable. They happen during the months of June and July. Their commencement being ſo much later than thoſe of the Miſſiſippi, would induce a belief that the ſources of the Miſſouri are northward of thoſe of the Miſſiſippi, unleſs we ſuppoſe that the cold increaſes again with the aſcent of the land from the Miſſiſippi weſtwardly. That this aſcent is great, is proved by the rapidity of the river. Six miles above the mouth it is brought within the compaſs of a quarter of a mile's width: yet the Spaniſh merchants at Pancore, or St. Louis, ſay they go two thouſands miles up it. It heads far weſtward of the Rio Norte, or North River. There is, in the villages of Kaſkaſkia, Cohoes and St. Vincennes, no inconſiderable quantity of plate, ſaid to have been plundered during the laſt war by the Indians from the churches and private houſes of Santa Fé, on the North River, and brought to theſe villages for ſale. From the