What to see in America . r anotheryear of exploring to the west of it he returned to its banksopposite Natchez and there died May 21, on Louisianasoil. Lest the savages should mistreat the body, his followershollowed out the trunk of a large oak tree that they felled,placed the body in it, and at night rowed out to midstreamwith the oak coffin. Then they slid the coffin into the 285 286 What to See in America stream, and the heavy green wood carried the body of thefamous explorer to the bottom. In 1673 a French expeditionled by Joliet and Marquette started from the Great Lakesin two large birc
What to see in America . r anotheryear of exploring to the west of it he returned to its banksopposite Natchez and there died May 21, on Louisianasoil. Lest the savages should mistreat the body, his followershollowed out the trunk of a large oak tree that they felled,placed the body in it, and at night rowed out to midstreamwith the oak coffin. Then they slid the coffin into the 285 286 What to See in America stream, and the heavy green wood carried the body of thefamous explorer to the bottom. In 1673 a French expeditionled by Joliet and Marquette started from the Great Lakesin two large birch-bark canoes, and by way of the WisconsinRiver reached the Mississippi, which they descended as faras the mouth of the Arkansas. Then they went back to thelakes. On April 9, 1682, La Salle, who had come with afleet of canoes from the Lakes by way of the Illinois River,reached the mouth of the Mississippi, and took possession ofthe great valley in the name of France. He called itLouisiana in honor of his king, Louis Cutting Sugar Cane The territory drained by the Mississippi and its tributariesextends nearly to Canada and across more than h^lf ourcountrys width. The distance from the source of theMissouri to the Gulf is forty-two hundred miles, whichno other river on the globe can equal, and only theAmazon discharges more water. In its last five hundredmiles the Mississippi is from seventy-five to one hundred and Louisiana 287 twenty feet deep. A prominent feature of this part of theriver is the great levees guarding the land that lies behindthem from floods. Sometimes the levees fail to hold themighty river, as, for instance, in 1882, when a flood rendered75,000 persons destitute. The river and its principal trib-utaries are navigable for many thousands of miles. Thefirst steamboat to plow the watersof the river was launched atPittsburg in the autumn of was a stern-wheeler one hun-dred and sixteen feet long withtwo masts, and was painted skyblue. On January 10,
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