The things we do!

With its tributaries it provides somewhat more than sixteen
thousand miles of navigable water, more than any other system on the globe
except the Amazon, and more than enough to reach from Paris to Lake
Superior by way of Kamchatka and Alaska--about three-fourths of the way
around the globe.
The sediment carried to the sea is estimated at four hundred million tons
[Footnote: Humphrey's and Abbot's estimate.] annually. As one has put it,
it would require daily for its removal five hundred trains of fifty cars,
each carrying fifty tons, and would make two square miles each year over a
hundred and thirty feet deep. Mark Twain in "Life on the Mississippi" is
authority for the statement that the muddy water of the Missouri is more
wholesome than other waters, until it has settled, when it is no better
than that of the Ohio, for example. If you let a pint of it settle you
will have three-fourths of an inch of mud in the bottom. His advice is to
keep it stirred up. [Footnote: "Life on the Mississippi," p.


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