The international geography . iver touches the bluffson one or other side of the plain. Hap-pening in this century to lie nearer theeastern side of the plain than the west-ern, Memphis, Tenn., Vicksburg, Miss.,and Natchez and Baton Rouge, La., areon the eastern bluffs. Helena, Ark., is the only important city on thewestern bluff below St. Louis. To these must be added Cairo, III., at thejunction of the Ohio and Mississippi. If engineering skill ever suffices to control the floods of the Mississippi,to restrain the shifting of its meandering channel, and to drain the back-swamps of its flood pl
The international geography . iver touches the bluffson one or other side of the plain. Hap-pening in this century to lie nearer theeastern side of the plain than the west-ern, Memphis, Tenn., Vicksburg, Miss.,and Natchez and Baton Rouge, La., areon the eastern bluffs. Helena, Ark., is the only important city on thewestern bluff below St. Louis. To these must be added Cairo, III., at thejunction of the Ohio and Mississippi. If engineering skill ever suffices to control the floods of the Mississippi,to restrain the shifting of its meandering channel, and to drain the back-swamps of its flood plain, the whole surface may be cultivated. Alreadysome steps have been taken toward this profitable end. A MississippiRiver Commission has constructed elaborate maps of the river, and exten-sive dikes or levees are constructed along its banks. Another centurymay see great advance made from this beginning, and then the product ofthe Mississippi flood plain will be proportionate to its vast extent and itsinexhaustible Fig. 364.—The Site of New Orleans. TRANS-MISSISSIPPI STATES The Trans-Mississippi States.—The tier of States from Minnesotato Louisiana immediately west of the Mississippi presents an epitomisedreview of what has already been described. Northern Minnesota is anextension of the Laurentian highlands, a region of ancient rocks worndown to moderate relief, rich in iron ores. It is abundantly strewn overwith sheet drift and heaped moraines enclosing innumerable lakes. Itsnorthward slope, with that of eastern North Dakota, drained by the RedRiver of the North, was the seat of the vast glacial-marginal Lake Agassiz,stretching far north into Canada against the retreating ice, and overflowingat a dip in the height of land on the south, where the channel now followedby the Minnesota river was cut. The shore lines of the lake and thedeltas of inflowing rivers on the east and west are not less distinct than thechannel of its outlet, although now abandoned by the
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectgeography, bookyear19
