182.]
The area which it drains is roughly a million and a quarter square miles,
or two-fifths of the United States. That is, as one graphic historian has
visualized it in European terms, Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, and
Italy could be set down within its limits and there would still be some
room to spare.
The river has the strength (for the most part put to no use) of sixty
million horses. The difference between high water and low water in flood
conditions is in some places fifty feet, which shows that it has a wider
range of moodiness than even the Seine.
The rim dividing the Mississippi basin from that of the Great Lakes is, as
we have seen, low and narrow; in some places, especially in wet seasons,
the watershed is indistinguishable. The waters know not which way to go.
This fact furnishes the explanation of the ease with which the French
explorers penetrated the valley from the north. A high mountain range kept
the English colonists out of it from the east. The Spanish found no
physical barriers at the south (except the water, which gave the Frenchmen
help), but, as we have seen, on the other hand, they found no adequate
inducement.
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