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Mississippi

MISSISSIPPI, a South Central state of the United States, situated between 35 N. lat. and 31 N. lat., with its S.E. part extending to the Gulf of Mexico, the extreme southern point being in 30 13' N. lat. near the mouth of the Pearl River. On the E. the line is mostly regular, its extreme E. point being at 88 7' W. long, in the N.E. corner of the state; the W. boundary has its extreme W. point at 01 41' W. long, in the S.W. corner of the state. Mississippi is bounded N. by Tennessee, E. by Alabama, S. by the Gulf of Mexico and Louisiana, W. by Louisiana, from which it is separated by the Pearl River and by the Mississippi, and by Arkansas, from which also it is separated by the Mississippi. The total area 1546,865 sq. m., of which 503. sq. m. are water surface.

Physical Features. Mississippi lies for the most part in the Mississippi embayment of the Gulf Coastal Plain. A feature of its surface is a strip of bottom land between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, known as the Yazoo Delta; it extends from north to south about 175 m., and has an average width of more than 60 m., and covers an area of about 7000 sq. m. With the exception of a few flat ridges running from north to south, it is so low that it requires, to protect it from overflows, an unbroken line of levees averaging 15 ft. in height; these were built and are maintained by the state in part from a special tax on the land and in part from the sale of swamp lands of the United States (under an act of 1850). Along the eastern border of this delta, and southward of it, along the Mississippi itself, extends a belt of hills or bluffs (sometimes called "cane- hills"), which is cut by deep ravines and, though very narrow in the north, has in the south an average width of about 10 m. East of the belt are level or gently rolling prairies, and along the Gulf Coast is a low, marshy tract. The highest elevations, from 800 to looo ft. above the sea, are on the Pontotoc ridge in Tippah and Union counties; and from this ridge there is an almost imperceptible slope south and west from the Appalachian Mountain system. Along the margins of valleys there are hills rising from 30 to 120 ft., but farther back from the water courses the differences of elevation are much less. The coast-line, about 85 m. long, is bordered by a beach of white sand, and broken by several small and shallow indentations, among which are St Louis, Biloxi. Pascagoula and Point aux Chenes bays; separated from it by the shallow and practically unnayigable Mississippi Sound is a chain of low, long and narrow sand islands, the argest of which are Petit Bois, Horn, Ship and Cat. The prin:ipal rivers are: the Mississippi on the western border, and its tributaries, the Yazoo and the Big Black; the Pearl and Pascagoula, which dram much of the southern portion of the state and flow into the Gulf ; and the Tombigbee, which drains most of the north-eastern portion, the Pontotoc ridge separates the drainage system of the Mississippi from that of the Tombigbee; extending from the northeastern part of the state southward, this ridge divides in Choctaw county, the eastern branch separating the drainage basin in the Pascagoula from that of the Pearl, and the western branch separamg the drainage basin of the Pearl from that of the Big Black and the Mississippi. The Delta is drained chiefly by the Yazoo A small area in the north-eastern corner of the state is drained northward by the Tennessee and the Hatchie. Each of the larger rivers is fed by smaller streams; their fall is usually gentle and quite uniform. The valleys vary in width from a few hundred yards to several miles. In the east of the state much of the valley of each ol the larger streams is several feet above the stream's present Wellwater mark and forms the " hommock " or " second bottom " lands. Most of the rivers flowing into the Gulf are obstructed by sand-bars and navigable only during high-water from January to April. Oxbow lakes and bayous are common only in the Delta.

Geology. The older formations are nearly all overlaid by deposits of the Quaternary period, which will be described last. In the extreme north-east are found the oldest rocks in the state lower Devonian (the New Scotland beds of New York) and, not so old an extension of the Lower Carboniferous which underlies the Warrior coalfields of Alabama, and which consists of cherts, limestones, sandstones and shales, with a depth of 800 to 900 ft. The strata here show some traces of the upheaval which formed the Appalachian Mountain chain. When this chain formed the Atlantic mountainborder of the continent excepting this north-eastern corner, Mississippi had not emerged from the waters of the ancient Gulf of Mexico. As the shore line of the Gulf slowly receded southward and westward, the sediment at its bottom gradually came to the surface, and constituted the Cretaceous and Tertiary formations. Wherever stratification is observed in these formations in Mississippi, it shows a dip west and south of 20 or 30 ft. to the mile.

The Cretaceous region includes, with the exception of the Lower Carboniferous, all that part of the state eastward of a line cutting the Tennessee boundary in 88 50' W. long., and drawn southward and eastward near Ripley, Pontotoc, and Starkville, crossing into Alabama in latitude 32 45'. There are four formations of Cretaceous strata in Mississippi, denned by lines having the same general direction as the one just described. The oldest, bordering the Lower Carboniferous, is the Tuscaloosa formation of clays and sands arranged as follows: dark clays, thin lignite seams, lignitic clays, sands and chert, and light clays; this formation is 5-15 m. wide and reaches from about 33* 30' on the Alabama boundary north to the Tennessee boundary. It is about 270 ft. thick. Tuscaloosa clays are used in the manufacture of pottery. Overlying the Tuscaloosa are the Eutaw sands, characterized by sandy laminated clays, and yellow, orange, red and blue sands, containing lignite and fossil resin. The Eutaw formation is a strip about 5 to 12 m. wide with a maximum depth of 300 ft. Westward to Houston and southward to about 32 48' on the Alabama boundary and occupying a much larger area than the other Cretaceous formations, is the Selma chalk, called " Rotten Limestone " by Hilgard; it is made up of a material of great uniformity, a soft chalky rock, white or pale blue, composed chiefly of tenacious clay, and white carbonate of lime in minute crystals. Borings show that the thickness of this group varies from 350 ft. in the north to about 1000 ft. at Starkville. Fossils are abundant, and forty species are recorded. The latest Cretaceous is the Ripley formation, which lies west of the northern part of the last-named, and, about Scooba, in a small strip, the most southerly of the Cretaceous it is composed of coarse sandstones, hard crystalline white limestones, clays, sands, phosphatic greensands, and darkcoloured, micaceous, glauconitic marls; its greatest thickness is about 280 ft. Its marine fossils are admirably preserved, and one hundred and eight species have been described.

Deposits of the Tertiary period form the basis of more than half the state, extending from the border of the Cretaceous westward nearly to the Yazoo Delta and the Mississippi Bottom, and southward to within a few miles of the Gulf coast. Seven formations (or groups) of the Tertiary strata have been distinguished in Mississippi. The oldest is the Midway limestone and clays in a narrow strip whose western limit is nearly parallel to the western boundary of the Selma chalk; it includes: the Clayton formation, characterized by the hard blue Turritella limestone (so named from the frequent fossil ( Turritella mortoni) ; and Porters Creek (previously called Flatwoods) clay, which is grey, weathering white, and is occasionally overlain by grey fossiliferous sandstone. The Wilcox formation (called Lignitic by Hilgard, and named by Safford the Lagrange group) lies to the west of the last, and its western limit is from about 32 12' on the Alabama boundary about due north-west; in its north- westernmost part it is on the western edge of the Tertiary in this state. Its minimum depth is 850 ft. It is marked by grey clays and sands, lignitic fossiliferous clays, beds of lignite or brown coal, sometimes 8 ft. in thickness, and brownish clays. The siliceous Claiborne (or Tallahatta Buhrstone) formation lies south-westward from the last-named in a strip 10-30 m. wide, whose south-eastern extremity is the intersection of the 32nd meridian with the Alabama boundary, is characterized by beds of aluminous grey and white sandstone, aluminous and siliceous clay-stone, cjuartzitic sandstone, and green sand and marls. The calcareous Claiborne or ClaiborneLisbon formation-group lies south of the last, in a wedge-like strip with the apex on the Alabama boundary ; it is a series of clays and sands, richly fossiliferous. The Jackson formation couth-west of the Lisbon beds, is made up chiefly of grey calcareous clay marls, bluish lignitic clays, green-sand and grey siliceous sands. Basilosaurus (or Zeuglodon) bones are found only in the Jackson marls, and other marine fossils are abundant. The minimum thickness of the formation is 240 ft. The Vicksburg formation lies next in order south-west, in a narrow strip of fairly regular width which alone of the Tertiary formations runs as far west as the Mississippi River; it is probably nowhere more than no ft. deep. It is characterized by semi-crystalline limestones and blue and white sandy marls. Marine fossils are very abundant in the_ marl. The Grand Gulf group, of formations of different ages, consisting of sands, sandstones and clays, and showing a few fossil plants, but no marine fossils, extends southward from the last to within a few miles of the coast, and is 750-800 ft. deep.

The older formation of the Quaternary period is the Lafayette (also called " Orange-sand " or " stratified drift "), which immediately overlies all the Cretaceous groups except the prairies of the Selma chalk, and all the Tertiary except the Porters Creek and Vicksburg formations and parts of the Jackson. Its depth varies from a few feet to over 200 ft. (in the southern part of the state), and it forms the body of most of the hills in the state. Its materials are pebbles, clays and sands of various colours from white to deep red, tinged with peroxide of iron, which sometimes cements the pebbles and sands into compact rocks. The shapes of these ferruginous sandstones are very fantastic tubes, hollow spheres, plates, etc., being common. The name stratified drift has been used to indicate its connexion with the northern drift. The fossils are few, and in some cases probably derived from the underlying formations. Well-worn pebbles of amorphous quartz (agate, chalcedony, jasper, etc.) are found in the stratified drift along the western side of the Tertiary region of the state, and from Columbus northward. _The second Quaternary formation is the Port Hudson, occurring within 20 m. of the Gulf coast, and, with alluvium, in the Yazoo Delta. Heavy clays, gravel and sands, containing cypress stumps, driftwood and mastodon bones, are characteristic. The loess or bluff formation lies along the bluffs bordering the Bottom, nearly continuously through the state. Its fine-grained, unstratified silt contains the remains of many terrestrial animals, including fifteen mammals.

Fauna. Among the more common species of game are squirrels, opossums, musk-rats, rabbits, racoons, wild turkeys, ", partridges " (quail, or Bob White), geese, and ducks; deer, black bears, grey (or timber) wolves, black wolves and " wild cats " (lynx), once common, have become rare. Alligators inhabit the southern river-bottoms, and there are some rattlesnakes on the uplands. Among a great variety of song-birds the mocking-bird is prominent; the parakeet is found in the southern part of the state. Buffalo-fish, paddle-fish, cat-fish, drum, crappie, black bass, rock bass, German carp, sturgeon, pike, perch, eels, suckers and shrimp inhabit the waters of the Mississippi and its tributaries, and oysters, shrimp, trout, Spanish mackerel, channel bass, black bass, sheepshead, mullet, croakers, pqmpano, pin-fish, blue-fish, flounders, crabs and terrapin are obtained from the Mississippi Sound and the rivers flowing into it.

Flora. Originally Mississippi was almost entirely covered with a growth of forest trees of large size, mostly deciduous; and in 1900 about seven-tenths of its area was still classed as timber-land. The north central part of the state, known as the " flat woods," is level and heavily forested. There are more than 120 species of trees in the state, 15 of oak alone. The most valuable species for lumber are the long-leaf pine which is predominant in the low southern third of the state, sometimes called the " cow-country "; the short-leaf pine, found farther north ; the white oak, quite widely distributed; cotton-wood and red gum, found chiefly on the rich alluvial lands; and the cypress, found chiefly in the marshes of the Delta. The beautiful live oaks and magnolias grow only in the south of the state; the holly in the lowlands; and the finest species of pecan, in the Delta. The sassafras, persimmon, wild cherry and Chickasaw plum are found in all parts of the state. The grape, Ogeechee lime (Nyssa capitata) and pawpaw are also native fruits. Among indigenous shrubs and vines are the blackberry, dewberry, strawberry, yellow jasmine, mistletoe and poisonoak; and among medicinal herbs are horehound, ginger and peppermint. Here, too, grows Spanish moss, used by upholsterers.

Climate. The southern latitude, the low elevation and the proximity to the Gulf of Mexico produce in southern Mississippi a rather mild and equable climate, but to the northward the extremes increase. The normal annual temperature for the state is 64 F. ; on the coast it is 67 F., and on the northern border it is 61 F. During a period of twenty years, from January 1887 to December 1906, extremes of temperature at Biloxi, on the coast, ranged from i F. to 100 F. ; during nearly the same period at Pontotoc, in the north-eastern part of the state, they ranged from-li* F. to 105 F. The greatest extremes recorded were -15 F. at Aberdeen, Monroe county, on the 13th of February 1899, and 107 F. at several places in July and August of different years. January is the coldest month and July is the warmest. During the winter -the normal temperature decreases quite steadily from south to north ; thus the mean temperature in January at Biloxi is 51 F., at Meridian, in the east central part, it is 46 F., and at Pontotoc it is 43 F. But during the summer, temperatures are affected as much by altitude as by latitude, and the coast is cooled at night by breezes from the Gulf. The July mean is 82 F. at several places in the southern part of the state, and at Yazoo city, in the west central part, it is 83 F. The normal annual precipitation for Mississippi is about 51 in.; for the southern half, 54 in., and for the northern half, 49 in. An average of 4 in. of snow falls in the northern half, but south of Natchez snow is seldom seen. Nearly one-third of the rain falls in January, February and March ; July, also, is one of the wet months. The driest season is in September and October The prevailing winds are from the south-east; but the rain-bearing winds are chiefly from the southwest, and the high winds from the west and north-west.

Soils. The most fertile soil is the alluvium of the " Delta, deposited during the overflows of the Mississippi. Others that are exceedingly productive are the black calcareous loam of the prairies, the calcareous silt of the bluff belt along the eastern border of the Delta, and the brown loam of the tableland in the central part of the state. Of inferior quality are the yellow loam of the hills in the north-east and the sandy loam in the pine belt of the south. Throughout the southern portion sand is a large ingredient, and to the northward there is more or less lime.

Agriculture. Mississippi is devoted largely to the cultivation of cotton. Of the total land area of the state, 18,240,736 acres *(6i -3 %) were, in 1900, included in farms, and the improved farm land increased from 4,209,146 acres in 1870 to 7,594,428 acres (41-6 % of all farm land) in 1900. After the abolition of slavery, farms greatly decreaseo^in size and increased in number; the number grew from 68,023 in 1870 to 220,803 | n 1900; the average size fell from 369-7 acres in 1860 to 82-6 acres in 1900. Of the total number of farms in 1900, 81,412 were worked by owners or part owners (60,585 by whites and 20,827 by negroes) ; 70,699 were worked by cash tenants (!3.55 by whites and 57,194 by negroes); and 67,153 were worked by share tenants (16,748 by whites and 50,405 by negroes).

The acreage of cotton increased from 2,106,215 acres in 1879 to 3,220,000 in 1907; the yield increased from 936,111 bales in 1879 to 1,468,177 bales in 1907. Cotton is grown in every county of the state, but the large yields are in the Delta (Bolivar, Coaohma, Washington, Yazoo and Leflore counties), the greatest cotton-producing region of the world, and in Monroe. Lowndes and Noxubee counties on the Alabama border. The acreage of Indian corn in 1907 was 2,500,000 acres and the crop 42,500,000 bushels. The production of other cereals decreased during the latter half of the 19th century: oats, from 1,959,620 bushels in 1879 to 1, 611,000 bushels in 1907; wheat, from 587,925 bushels in 1859 to 22,000 in 1907; rye, from 39,474 bushels in 1859 to 963 bushels in 1899, after which year the crop has been negligible; and rice, from 2,719,856 ft in 1849 to about 1, 080,000 ft in 1907. The largest Indian-corn producing districts are nearly the same as those which produce the most cotton; oats and wheat are grown chiefly in the north-eastern quarter of the state, and rice in the south-western quarter.

Between 1850 and 1907 dairy cows increased from 214,231 to 330,000; other neat cattle from 519,739 to 589,000; sheep decreased from 304,929 to 181,000; swine decreased from 1,582,734 to 1,316,000; horses increased from 115,460 to 260,000, and mules from 54,547 to 279,000.

Sugar-cane is grown principally in the southern part of the state, but sorghum-cane is grown to some extent in nearly every county. Sweet potatoes, white potatoes and onions also are important crops. The greatest relative advance between 1889 and 1899 in any branch of agriculture was made in the growth of market-garden produce and small fruits; for old pine lands, formerly considered useless, had been found valuable for the purpose. The number of orchard trees increased nearly 100 % within the same decade. At Crystal Springs tomatoes were first successfully grown for the market (1874-1876). Orchard trees and grape-vines are widely distributed throughout the state, but with the exception of peaches their yield is greater in the northern portion.

Lumber. Mississippi ranks high among the southern states in the production of lumber. Its timber-land in 1900 was estimated at 32,300 sq. m. From the extreme south most of the merchantable timber had been cut, but immediately north of this there were still vast quantities of valuable long-leaf pine; in the marshes of the Delta was much cypress, the cotton-wood was nearly exhausted, and the gum was being used as a substitute for it ; and on the rich upland soil' were oak and red gum, also cotton-wood, hickory and maple. The lumber and timber product increased in value from $1,920,335 in 1880 to $24,035,539 in 1905. Pine stumps and waste limbs are utilized, notably at Hattiesburg, for the manufacture of charcoal, tar, creosote, turpentine, etc.

Fisheries,^ Fishing is a minor industry, confined for the most part to the Mississippi Sound and neighbouring waters and to the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers. The most valuable branch is the oyster County Seats County Boundaries, ' Railways ipp '/'- So a^'*%$f*.^ Zss=pf, pn A Longitude West qo( Greenwich fishery on the reefs in the Sound, much developed since 1880. The shrimp fishery, too, grew during the same period. About 40% of the total catch of the state is made by the inhabitants of Harrison county on the Gulf of Mexico.

Minerals. The mineral wealth of the state is limited. Clays and mineral waters are, however, widely distributed. Large quantities of mineral water, sulphur, chalybeate and lithia, bottled at Meridian, Raymond and elsewhere, are sold annually. The state contains deposits of iron, gypsum, marl, phosphate, lignite, ochre, glass-sand, tripoli, fuller's earth, limestones and sandstones; and there are small gas flows in the Yazoo Delta.

Manufactures. The lack of mineral resources, especially of coal and iron, of a good harbour (until the improvement of Gulfport), and of an adequate supply of labour has discouraged most kinds of manufacturing. The value of the total factory product was $57i45 I 1445 m I 95- when a little more than three-fourths was represented by lumber and timber products, cotton-seed oil and cake, and cotton goods. The leading manufacturing centres are Meridian, Vicksburg, Jackson, Natchez and Biloxi.

Transport. Along the entire western border of the state the Mississippi River is navigable for river steamboats. On the southern border, the Mississippi Sound affords safe navigation for small coasting vessels, and from Gulfport (13 m. W.S.W. of Biloxi) to Ship Island, which has one of the best harbours on the entire Gulf Coast, the Gulf & Ship Island Railroad Company, with the co-operation of the United States Government, in 1901 began to dredge a channel 300 ft. wide and 19 ft. at mean low water, and to construct an anchorage basin (completed in 1906) at Gulfport, J m. long and J m. wide, and 19 ft. deep. In June 1908 the maximum low-water draft of the channel and the basin was 19 ft. The Gulfport project reduced freight rates between Gulfport and the Atlantic seaboard cities and promoted the trade of Gulfport, which is the port of entry for the Pearl River customs district. Its imports for 1909 were valued at $82,028 and its exports at $8,581,471. The Yazoo, Tallahatchie, Yalobusha, Sunflower, Big Black, Pascagoula and Pearl rivers are also navigable to a limited extent. The first railway in Mississippi was completed from Vicksburg to Clinton in 1840, but the state had suffered severely from the panic of 1837, and in 1850 it had only 75 m. of railway. This was increased to 862 m. by 1860. The Civil War then interfered, and in 1880 the mileage was only 1127 m. During the next decade it was a little more than doubled, and at the cjose of 1908 it was 3916-85 m. The principal lines are the Illinois Central, the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley, the Southern, the Mobile & Ohio, the New Orleans & North-eastern, the Kansas City, Memphis & Birmingham, the Mobile, Jackson & Kansas City, the Alabama & Vicksburg, and the Gulf & Ship Island.

Population. The population increased from 1,131,597 in 1880 l to 1,289,600 in 1890, of 14% within the decade, and by 1900 it had grown to 1,551,270 (99-48% native-born), and by 1910 to 1,797,114. The density of population in 1900 was 33.5 per sq. m.; 641,200, or 41-3%; were whites; 907,630, or 58-5%, were negroes; 2203 were Indians, and 237 were Chinese; in eight counties of the Delta the ratio of negroes to whites was almost 7 to i. The Indians are 'descendants of the Choctaw tribe; they are all subject to taxation, and most of them live in the east central part of the state. The principal religious denominations are the Baptist (371,518 in 1906) and the Methodist (212,105 in 1906). The cities and towns having a population in 1900 of 4000 or more were: Vicksburg, Meridian, Natchez, Jackson, Greenville, Columbus, Biloxi, Yazoo City, McComb and Hattiesburg.

Government. The chief special object of the present constitution, adopted on the 1st of November 1890, was to preserve in a legal manner the supremacy of the whites over the ignorant negro majority. In addition to the ordinary suffrage qualifications of age, sex, and residence, the voter must have paid all taxes due from him for the two years immediately preceding the election, and he must be able to read any section of the constitution or " be able to understand the same when read to him, or give a reasonable interpretation thereof." The former provision, strengthened by a poll-tax for school purposes assessed on adult males, affects both white and blacks; the latter, owing to the discretion vested in the election officers, affects (in practice) mainly the blacks. The chief executive officials are the governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, treasurer, auditor, attorney-general, and superintendent of education. All are chosen for terms of four years, and the governor, treasurer, and auditor are ineligible for immediate re-election.

'The population at each of the preceding censuses was: 8850 in 1800; 40,352 in 1810; 75,448 in 1820; 136,621 in 1830; 375,651 in 1840; 606,526 in 1850; 791,305 in 1860; and 827,922 in 1870.

The method of election is peculiar, being based in part upon the national presidential model. Each county or legislative district casts as many electoral votes as it has members in the state house of representatives, and a majority of both the electoral and the popular vote is required. If no one has such a majority, the house of representatives chooses one of the two who have received the highest number of popular votes; but this is really a provision never executed, as the Democratic nominees are always elected without any serious opposition. The governor is empowered to call extraordinary sessions of the legislature, to grant pardons and reprieves, and to exercise a power of veto which extends to items in appropriation bills; a two-thirds majority of the legislature is necessary to pass a bifl over his veto. His appointing power is not very extensive, as nearly all officials, except judges, are elected by popular vote.

The legislature consists of a senate and a house of representatives, chosen every four years. It meets in regular session quadrennially, in special sessions in the middle of the interval to pass the appropriation and revenue bills, and in extraordinary session whenever the governor sees fit to call it. Revenue measures may originate in either house, but a three-fifths vote in each is necessary to their enactment. The constitution goes into minute detail in prohibiting local, private and special legislation.

The judiciary consists of a supreme court of three judges, thirteen (1908) circuit courts, seven (1908) chancery courts, county courts and justice of the peace courts. Under the constitution of 1890 the governor, with the consent of the senate, appoints supreme court judges for a term of nine years, and circuit and chancery judges for four years. The local judicial authorities are the county board of supervisors of five members and the justices of the peace.

The other county officials are the sheriff, coroner, treasurer, assessor, surveyor and superintendent of education. The superintendent is chosen by the state board of education except in those counties (now all or nearly all) in which the legislature has made the office elective. The courts have interpreted this to mean that the manner of selection need not be uniform (Wynn v. State, 67 Miss. 312), a rule which would possibly apply to other local offices. The intention seemed to be to permit the appointment of officials in counties and districts where there was any likelihood of negro supremacy.

Mississippi has taken a leading part in the movement to bring about the removal of the common law disabilities of married women, the first statute for that purpose having beeii passed in 1839. Under the present constitution they are " fully emancipated from all disability on account of coverture," and are placed on an equality with their husbands in acquiring and disposing of property and in making contracts relative thereto. A divorce may be granted only to one who has lived for at least one year in the state; among the recognized causes for divorce are desertion for two years, cruelty, insanity or physical incapacity at time of marriage, habitual drunkenness or excessive use of opium or other drugs, and the conviction of either party of felony. The homestead of a householder (with a family) who occupies it may be held exempt from sale for the collection of debts other than those for purchase-money, taxes, or improvements, or for the satisfaction of a judgment upon a forfeited recognizance or bail-bond, but a homestead so exempted is limited to $3000 in value and to 160 acres of land. A considerable amount of personal property, including furniture, a small library, provisions, tools, agricultural implements, livestock and the proceeds of a life insurance policy, is also exempt from seizure for the satisfaction of debts. Since 1909 the sale of intoxicating liquors has been prohibited by statute.

Penal and Charitable Institutions. The penitentiary at Jackson was established under an Act of 1836, was erected in 1838-1839, was opened in 1840, was burned by the Federals in 1863. and was rebuilt in 1866-1867. The board of control is composed of the governor, attorney-general and the three railroad commissioners. The convict lease system was abolished by the constitution of 1890 (the provision to take effect on the list of December 1894), and state farms were purchased in Rankin, Hinds and Holmes counties. As these were insufficient to give employment to all the prisoners, some were put to work on Yazoo Delta plantations on partnership contracts. Under an act of 1900, however, 13,889 acres of land were purchased in Sunflower county; and there and at Tchula, Holmes county, and at Oakley, Hinds county, the negro convicts the white convicts are on the Rankin county farm are kept on several large plantations, with saw-mills, cotton gins, etc. Under a law of 1906 these farm penitentiaries are controlled by a board of three trustees, elected by the people; they are managed by a superintendent, appointed once every four years by the governor. The charitable institutions of the state are supervised by separate boards of trustees appointed by the governor. The state insane hospital, opened at Jackson in 1856 (act of 1848), in time became overcrowded and the East Mississippi insane hospital was opened, 2 m. west of Meridian in 1885 (act of 1882). The state institution for the education of the deaf and dumb (1854) and the state institution for the blind (1848) are at Jackson. State aid is given to the hospitals at Vicksburg and Natchez.

Education. Educational interests were almost entirely neglected during the colonial and territorial periods. The first school established in the state was Jefferson College, now Jefferson Military College, near Natchez, Adams county, incorporated in 1802. Charters were granted to schools in Claiborne, Wilkinson and Amite counties in 1809-1815, and to Port Gibson Academy and Mississippi College, at Clinton, in 1826. The public school system, established in 1846, never was universal, because of special legislation for various counties; public education was retarded during the Civil War and the Reconstruction period (when immense sums appropriated for schools were grossjy mismanaged), but conditions gradually improved after 1875, especially through the concentration of schools. The sessions are still too short, teachers are poorly paid and attendance is voluntary. The long lack of normal training for white teachers (from 1870 to 1904 there was a normal school for negroes at Holly Springs) lasted until 1890, when a teacher's training course was introduced into the curriculum of the state university. There are separate schools for whites and blacks, and the equipment and service are approximately equal, although the whites pay about nine-tenths of the school taxes. The schools are subject to the supervision of a state superintendent of public education and of a board of education, composed of the superintendent, the secretary of state, and the attorney-general, and within each county to a county superintendent. The schools are supported by a poll-tax, by general appropriations, by local levies, and by the Chickasaw school fund. An act of Congress of the 3rd of March 1803 reserved from sale section sixteen of the public lands in each township for educational purposes. When the Chickasaws ceded their lands to the national government, in 1830 and in 1832,thestatemadeaclaim to the sixteenth sections, and finally in 1856 received 174,550 acres one thirty-sixth of the total cession of 6,283,804 acres. The revenue derived from the sales and leases of this land constitutes an endowment fund upon which the state as trustee pays 6% interest. It is used for the support of the schools in the old Chickasaw territory in the northern part of the state.

Among the institutions for higher education are the university of Mississippi (chartered 1844; opened 1848), at Oxford, which was opened to women in 1882; the Agricultural and Mechanical College (opened 1880), at Agricultural College, near Starkville, Oktibbeha county; the Industrial Institute and College for Girls (opened 1885), at Columbus; and the Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College for negroes (1871; reorganized in 1878), at Westside. In 1819 Congress granted thirty-six sections of public land for the establishment x>f a university. This land was sold in 1833 for $277,332.52, but the entire sum was lost in the failure of the Planters' Bank in 1840. In 1880 the stace assumed liability for the full amount plus interest, and this balance, $544,061.23, now constitutes an endowment fund, upon which the state pays 6% interest. Congress granted another township (thirty-six sections) for the university in 1892, and its income is supplemented by legislative appropriations for current expenses and special needs. The two agricultural and mechanical colleges were founded by the sale of public lands given by Congress under the Morrill Act of 1862. An agricultural experiment station established in 1887 under the Hatch Act, is at Agricultural College; and there are branch experiment stations at McNeill, Pearl River county (1906), near Holly Springs, and at Stoneville, near Greenville.

Finance. The chief sources of revenue are taxes on realty, personalty and corporations, a poll-tax, and licences. The more important expenditures are for public schools, state departments, educational and charitable institutions and pensions for Confederate veterans. The early financial history of the state is not very creditable. The Bank of Mississippi, at Natchez, incorporated by the Territorial legislature in 1809, was rechartered by the state in 1818, and was guaranteed a monopoly of the banking business until 1840. In violation of this pledge, and in the hope that a new bank would be-more tractable than the Bank of Mississippi, the Planters' Bank was established at Natchez, in 1830, with a capital of $3,000,000, two-thirds of which was subscribed by the state. During the wild era of speculation which followed (especially in 1832 upon the opening of the Chickasaw Cession to settlement) a large number of banks and railroad corporations with banking privileges were chartered. The climax was reached in 1838 with the incorporation of the Union Bank. This, the most pretentious of all the state banks of the period, was capitalized at $15,500,000. The state subscribed $5,000,000, which was raised on bonds sold to Nicholas Biddle, president of the United States Bank of Pennsylvania. As the Union Bank was founded in the midst of a financial panic and was mismanaged, its failure was a foregone conclusion. Agitation for repudiation was begun by Governor A. G. McNutt (1801-1848), and that question became the chief issue in the gubernatorial campaign Tilghman M. Tucker (1802-1859), the Democratic candidate, representing the repudiators and David O. Shattuck, Whig, representing the anti-repudiators. The Democrats were successful, and the bonds were formally repudiated in 1842. In 1853 the High Court of Appeals and Errors of the state in the case of Mississippi v. Hezion Johnson (35 Miss. Reports, 625) decided unanimously that nothing could absolve the state from its obligation. The decision was disregarded, however, and in the same year the Planters' Bank bonds were also repudiated by popular vote. These acts of repudiation were sanctioned by the constitution of 1890. The $7,000,000 saved in this manner has doubtless been more than offset by the additional interest charges on subsequent loans, due to the loss of public confidence. Mississippi suffered less than most of the other Southern states during the Reconstruction period; but expenditures rose from $463,219.71 in 1869 to $1,729,046.34 in 1871. At the close of the Republican regime in 1876 its total indebtedness was $2,631,704.24, of which $814,743 belonged to the Chickasaw fund (see above) and $718,946.22 to the general school fund. As the principal of these funds is never to be paid, the real debt was slightly over $1,000,000. On the 1st of October 1907 the payable debt was $1,253,029.07, the non-payable $2,336,197.58,' a total of $3,589,226.65. Since the Civil War the banking laws have become more stringent and the national banks have exercised a wholesome influence. There were, in 1906, 24 national banks and 269 state banks, but no trust companies, private banks or savings banks.

History. At the beginning of the 16th century the territory included in the present state of Mississippi was inhabited by three powerful native tribes: the Natchez in the south-west, the Choctaws in the south-east and centre, and the Chickasaws in the north. In addition, there were the Yazoos in the Yazoo valley, the Pascagoulas, the Biloxis, and a few weaker tribes on the borders of the Mississippi Sound. The history of Mississippi may be divided into the period of exploration (1540- 1699), the period of French rule (1699-1763), the period of English rule (1763-1781), the period of Spanish rule (1.781- 1798), the territorial period (1798-1817), and the period of statehood (1817 seq.).

Hernando de Soto (q.v.) and a body of Spanish adventurers crossed the Tombigbee river , in December 1 540, near the present city of Columbus, marched through the north part of the state, and reached the Mississippi river near Memphis in 1541. In 1673 a French expedition organized in Canada under Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet sailed down the Mississippi to the mouth of the Arkansas, and nine years later (1682) Rene Robert Cavelier, sieur de la Salle, reached the mouth of the river, took formal possession of the country which it drains, and named it Lquisiana in honour of Louis XIV. The first European settlement in Mississippi was founded in 1699 by Pierre Lemoyne, better known as Iberville, at Fort Maurepas (Old Biloxi) on the north side of Biloxi Bay, in what is now Harrison county. The site proving unfavourable, the colony was transferred to Twentyseven Mile Bluff, on the Mobile River, in 1 702, and later to Mobile (1710). The oldest permanent settlements in the state are (New ) Biloxi (c. 1712), situated across the bay from Old Biloxi and nearer to the Gulf, and Natchez or Fort Rosalie (1716). During the next few years Fort St Peter and a small adjoining colony were established on the Yazoo River in Warren county, and some attempts at settlement were made on Bay St Louis and Pascagoula Bay. The efforts (1712-1721) to foster colonization and commerce through trading corporations established by Antoine Crozat and John Law failed, and the colony soon came again under the direct control of the king. It grew very slowly, partly because of the hostility of the Indians and partly because of the incapacity of the French as colonizers. In 1729-1730 the Natchez tribe destroyed Fort St Peter, and some of the small outposts, and almost destroyed the Fort Rosalie (Natchez) settlement.

At the close of the Seven Years' War (1763) France ceded to Great Britain ah 1 her territory east of the Mississippi except New Orleans, and Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain. By a royal proclamation (Oct. 7, 1763) these new possessions were divided into East Florida and West Florida, the latter lying S. of the 31st parallel and W. of the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola rivers. Crown orders of 1764 and 1767 extended the limits N. to 1 The increase is due mainly to the assumption of the university obligations in 1880.

a line due E. from the mouth of the Yazoo at about 32 28' N. lat. Under English rule there was an extensive immigration into this region from England, Ireland, Georgia and South Carolina. A settlement was made on the Big Black, 17 m. from its mouth, in 1774 by Phineas Lyman (1716-1774) of Connecticut and other " military adventurers," veterans of the Havana campaign of 1762; this settlement was loyal during the War of Independence. Spain took military possession in 1781, and in the Treaty of Paris (1783) both of the Floridas were ceded back to her. But Great Britain recognized the claims of the United States to the territory as far south as the 31st parallel, the line of 1763. Spain adhered to the line of 1764-1767, and retained possession of the territory in dispute. Finally, in the treaty of San Lorenzo el Real (ratified 1796) she accepted the 1763 (31) boundary, and withdrew her troops in 1798. Mississippi Territory was then organized, with Winthrop Sargent as governor. The territorial limits were extended on the north to the state of Tennessee in 1804 by the acquisition of the west cessions of South Carolina and Georgia, and on the south to the Gulf of Mexico by the seizure of West Florida in 1810-1813,' but were restricted on the east by the formation of the Territory of Alabama in 1817. Just after the uprising of 1720-1730 the French, with the help of the Choctaws, had destroyed the Natchez nation, and the shattered remnants were absorbed by the neighbouring tribes. The Chickasaws ceded their lands to the United States in 1816 and the Choctaws theirs in 1830-1832; and they removed to the Indian Territory. The smaller tribes have been exterminated, absorbed or driven farther west.

An Enabling Act was passed on the 1st of March 1817, and the state was formally admitted into the Union on the loth of December. The first state constitution (1817) provided a high property qualification for governor, senator and representative, and empowered the legislature to elect the judges and the more important state officials. In 1822 the capital was removed to Jackson from Columbia, Marion county. 2 The constitution of 1832 abolished the property qualification for holding office and provided for the popular election of judges and state officials. . Mississippi thus became one of the first states in the Union to establish an elective judiciary. 3 The same constitution prohibited the importation of negro slaves from other states; but this prohibition was never observed, and the United States Supreme Court held that it was ineffective without an act of the legislature. On the death of John C. Calhoun in 1850 the state, under the leadership of Jefferson Davis, began to rival South Carolina as leader of the extreme pro-slavery States' Rights faction. There was a brief reaction: Henry Stuart Foote (1800-1880), Unionist, was elected governor in 1851 over Davis, the States' Rights candidate, and in the same year a Constitutional Convention had declared almost unanimously that " the asserted right of secession" . . . " is utterly unsanctioned by the Federal Constitution." But the particularistic sentiment continued to grow. An ordinance of secession was passed on the 9th of January 1861, and the constitution was soon amended to conform to the new constitution of the Confederate States. During the Civil War battles were fought at Corinth (1862), Port Gibson (1863), Jackson (1863) and Vicksburg (1863). In 1865 President Johnson appointed as provisional governor William Lewis Sharkey (1797-1873), who had been chief justice of the state in 1832-1850, and a convention which assembled on the 14th of August recognized the " destruction " of slavery and declared the ordinance of secession null and void. The first reconstruction legislature met on the 16th of October 1865, and at once proceeded to enact stringent vagrancy laws and other measures against the freedmen; these laws the North 1 South Carolina ceded its western lands to the United States in 1787 and Georgia in 1802. The government added them to Mississippi in 1804. The seizure of West Florida was supplemented by the treaty of 1819-1821 in which Spain surrendered all of her claims.

1 The seats of government have been Natchez (1798-1802), Washington (1802-1817), Natchez (1817-1821), Columbia (1821-1822) Jackson (1822 seq.).

3 This system proved unsatisfactory, and in 1869 was abandoned.

interpreted as an effort to restore slavery. Under the Recontruction Act of the 2nd of March 1867 Mississippi with Arkansas :ormed the fourth military district, commanded successively by Generals E. O. C. Ord (1867), Alvan C. Gillem (1868) and Irvin McDowell (June-July 1868), and by Gillem (1868-1869) and Adelbert Ames (1869-1870). The notorious " Black and Tan Convention " of 1868 adopted a constitution which conferred suffrage upon the negroes and by the imposition of test oaths disfranchised the leading whites. It was at first rejected at the polls, but was finally ratified in November 1869 without the disfranchising clauses. The fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Federal Constitution were ratified in 1870, and the state was formally readmitted into the Union on the 23rd of February of that year.

From 1870 to 1875 the government was under the control of carpet-baggers," negroes and the most disreputable element among the native whites. Taxes were increased expenditure increased nearly threefold between 1869 and 1871 and there was some official corruption; but the state escaped the heavy burden of debt imposed upon its neighbours, partly because of the higher character of its reconstruction governors, and partly because its credit was already impaired by the repudiation of obligations contracted before the war. The Democrats carried the legislature in 1875, and preferred impeachment charges against Governor Adelbert Ames (b. 1835), a native of Maine, a graduate of the United States Military Academy (1861), a soldier in the Union army, and military governor of Mississippi in 1868-1870. The lieutenant-governor, A. K. Davis, a negro, was impeached and was removed from office; T. W. Cardoza, another negro, superintendent of education under Ames, was impeached on twelve charges of malfeasance, but was permitted to resign. Governor Ames, when the impeachment charges against him were dismissed on the 29th of March 1876, immediately resigned. The whites maintained their supremacy by very dubious methods until the adoption of the constitution of 1890 made it no longer necessary. The state has always been Democratic in national politics, except in the presidential elections of 1840 (Whig) and 1872 (Republican). The electoral vote was not counted in 1864 and 1868.

GOVERNORS Territorial Period (1798-1817).

Winthrop Sargent 1798-1801 William C. C. Claiborne 1801-1805 Robert Williams 1805-1809 David Holmes 1809-1817 Statehood Period (1817 seq.).

David Holmes Democrat George Poindexter ,, Walter Leake .... Democrat (died in office) Gerard C. Brandon (ad int.) . . Democrat David Holmes .... Democrat (resigned) Gerard C. Brandon (ad int. 1826-1828) .... Abram M. Scott . . . Democrat (died in office) Charles Lynch 4 (ad int.) . . . Democrat Hiram G. Runnels ,, John Anthony Quitman (ad int.) . Whig Charles Lynch Democrat Alexander Gallatin McNutt Tilghman M. Tucker Albert Gallatin Brown . oseph W. Matthews ohn Anthony Quitman 6 ohn Isaac Guion 6 (ad int.) ames Whitfield (ad int.) ienry Stuart Foote John Jones Pettus 7 (ad int.)

John J. McRae .

William McWillie John Jones Pettus Unionist Democrat 1817-1820 1820-1822 1822-1825 1825-1826 1826 1826-1832 1832-1833 1833 1833-1835 1835-1836 1836-1838 1838-1842 1842-1844 1844-1848 1848-1850 1850-1851 1851 1851-1852 1852-1854 1854 1854-1857 1857-1859 1859-1863 4 Under the constitution of 1832 the president of the senate succeeded the governor in case of a vacancy.

6 Governor Quitman resigned because of charges against him of aiding Lopez's expedition against Cuba.

6 On the 4th of November the term for which Guion had been elected as a senator expired and he was succeeded in the governorship by Whitfield, elected by the senate to be its president.

7 Served from the 5th of January (when Foote resigned) to the roth, when McRae was inaugurated.

Charles Clark 1 Democrat William Lewis Sharkey Provisional Benjamin Grubb Humphreys 2 . . . Republican Adelbert Ames . . Republican (Military Governor)

James Lusk Alcorn* ..... Republican Ridgley Ceylon Powers (ad int.) . .

Adelbert Ames 4 John Marshall Stone (ad int Robert Lowry J. M. Stone .... Anselm Joseph McLaurin Andrew Houston Longino James Kimble Vardaman Edmund Favor Noel 1876-78) Democrat 1863-186 1865 1865-186? 1868-1871 1870-187 1871-1874 1876-1882 1882-1890 1890-1896 1896-1900 1900-190.

1904-1908 1908 See T. A. Owen, " A Biography of Mississippi," in the Annua Report of the American Historical Association, l8f>Q, i. 633-82! (Washington, 1900); " Report of the Mississippi Historical Commission " in the Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, v. 52- 310 (Oxford, Miss., 1902). J. F. H. Claiborne's Mississippi as a Province, Territory and State (Jackson, 1880), gives the best account ol the period before the Civil War. R. Lowry and W. H. McCardle History of Mississippi (New York, 1893), js useful for local history. Of most value for the history are the writings of P. J. Hamilton, J. W. Garner and F. L. Riley. Hamilton's Colonial Mobile (Boston and New York, 1898), and the Colonization of the South (Philadelphia, 1904) are standard authorities for the French and English periods (1699-1781). Garner's Reconstruction in Mississippi (New York, 1902) is judicial, scholarly and readable. Most of Riley's work is in the Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society (Oxford 1898 seq.), which he edited ; see his Spanish Policy in Mississippi'after the Treaty of San Lorenzo, i. 50-66; Location of the Boundaries of Mississippi, iii, 167-184; and Transition from Spanish to American Rule in Mississippi, iii. 261-311. There is much material in the Encyclopaedia of Mississippi History (2 vols., Madison, Wisconsin, 1907), edited by Dunbar Rowland. There is a state Department of Archives and History MISSISSIPPI 6 RIVER, the central artery of the river system which drains the greater part of the United States of America lying between the Appalachian Mountains on the east and the Rocky Mountains on the west. It rises in the basin of Itasca Lake, in northern Minnesota, and flows mostly in a southerly direction to the Gulf of Mexico. In the region of its headwaters are numerous lakes which were formed by glacial action, but the river itself was old before the glacial period, as is shown by the crumbling rocks on the edges of the broad and driftless valley through which it flows along the S.E. border of Minnesota and the S.W. border of Wisconsin, in contrast with the precipitous bluffs of hard rock on the edges of a valley that is narrow and steep-sided farther down where the river was turned from its ancient course by the glacier. So long as the outlet of the Great Lakes through the St Lawrence Valley was blocked by the icy mass, they were much larger than now and discharged through the Wabash, Illinois and other rivers into the Mississippi. Below the glaciated region, that is from southern Illinois to the Gulf, the river had carved before the close of the glacial period a flood-plain varying in width from 5 to 80 m., but this has been filled to a depth of 100 ft. or more with alluvium, and in the postglacial period an inner valley has been formed within the outer one. The total length of the river proper from the source near Lake Itasca to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico is 2553 m.; but the true source of the river is at the fountain-head of the Missouri, in the Rocky Mountains, on the S.W. border of Montana, 8000 ft. above the sea, and from this source there is a continuous stream to the Gulf which is 4221 m. long the longest in the world. The Mississippi and its tributaries have more than 15,000 m. of navigable waterways and drain an area of approximately 1,250,000 sq. m. The system extends through the heart of the continent and affords a direct line of communication between temperate and tropical regions. Certain physical and hydrographic features, however, make the regulation and 'Removed from office by Federal troops, 22nd of May 1865; . L. Sharkey was appointed provisional governor by President 'hnson. + 1 Removed from office by U.S. troops 15th of June 1868.

3 Resigned 3oth of November 1871.

4 Resigned 2gth of March 1876; succeeded by the presii the senate.

by the president of 6 The name is from the Algonkin missi-sepe, literally " father of waters."

control of the Mississippi below the influx of the Missouri an exceedingly difficult problem.

The Upper Mississippi, that is the Mississippi from its source to the mouth of the Missouri, drains 173,000 sq. m., over which the annual rainfall averages 34-7 in., and its discharge per second into the Lower Mississippi varies from 25,000 cub. ft. to 550,000 cub. ft. The Missouri drains 528,000 sq. m., over which the annual rainfall averages 19-6 in., and its discharge per second into the Mississippi varies from 25,000 cub. ft. to 600,000 cub. ft. The Ohio drains 214,000 sq. m., over which the annual rainfall averages 43 in., and its discharge per second varies from 35,000 cub. ft. to 1,200,000 cub. ft. The Arkansas drains 161,000 sq. m., over which the annual rainfall averages 28-3 in., and its discharge per second varies from 4000 cub. ft. to 250,000 cub. ft. The Red drains 97,000 sq. m., over which the annual rainfall averages 38-3 in., and its discharge per second varies from 3500 cub. ft. to 180,000 cub. ft. These and a few smaller tributaries produce a river which winds its way from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to the passes through a flood plain averaging about 40 m. in width and having a general southern slope of 8 in. to the mile. The general lateral slope towards the foothills is about 6 in. in 5000 ft., but the normal fall in the first mile is about 7 ft. Thus the river sweeps onward with great velocity, eroding its banks in the bends and rebuilding them on the points, now forming islands by its deposits, and now removing them. Chief among the changes is the formation of cut-offs. Two eroding bends gradually approach each other until the water forces a passage across the narrow neck. As the channel distance between these bends may be many miles, a cascade perhaps 5 or 6 ft. in height is formed, and the torrent rushes through with a roar audible for miles. The checking of the current at the upper and lower mouths of the abandoned channel soon obstructs them by deposit, and forms in a few years one of the crescent lakes which are so marked a feature on the maps. At the mouth of the Red river 316 m. above the passes, the water surface at the lowest stage is only 5| ft. above the level of the Gulf, where the mean tidal oscillation is about ij ft. The river channel in this section is therefore a fresh-water lake. At the flood stage the surface rises 50 ft. at the mouth of Red river, but of course retains its level at the Gulf, thus giving the head necessary to force forward the increased volume of discharge. Above the mouth of the Red river the case is essentially different. The width increases and the depth decreases. Hence the general slope in long distances is here nearly the same at all stages. The effect of these different physical conditions appears in the comparative volumes which pass through the channel. At New Orleans the maximum discharge hardly reaches 1,200,000 cub. ft. per second, and a rising river at high stages carries only about 100,000 cub. ft. per second more than when falling at the same absolute level; but just below the mouth of the Ohio the maximum flood volume reaches 1,400,000 cub. ft. per second, and at some stages a rising river may carry one-third more water :han when falling at the same absolute level. The river is usually owest in October. It rises rapidly until checked by the freezing of the northern tributaries. It begins to rise again in February, is a consequence of the storms from the Gulf which traverse the )asin of the Ohio, and attains its highest point about the 1st of April, t then falls a few feet, but the rains in the Upper Mississippi basin cause it to rise again and high water is maintained until some time n June by the late spring and early summer rains ir\ the Missouri jasin. As a rule the river is above mid-stage from January to August inclusive, and below that level for the remainder of the year.

Engineering Works. Below Cape Girardeau there are at east 29,790 sq. m. of rich bottom lands which require protection Yom floods, and this has been accomplished to a great extent by he erection of levees. The first levee was begun in 1717, when he engineer, Le Blond de La Tour (d. about 1725) erected one a mile long to protect the infant city of New Orleans from overlow. Progress at first was slow. In 1770 the settlements jxtended only 30 m. above and 20 m. below New Orleans; but n 1828 the levees, although quite insufficient in dimensions, lad become continuous nearly to the mouth of the Red river, n 1850 a great impulse was given to systematic embankment >y the United States government, which turned over to the everal states all unsold swamps and overflowed lands within their imits, to provide a fund for reclaiming the districts liable to nundation. The action resulting from this caused alarm in ouisiana. The aid of the government was invoked, and Tongress immediately ordered the necessary investigations and urveys. This work was placed in charge of Captain (later eneral) Andrew A. Humphreys (1810-1883), and an elaborate eport covering the results of ten years of investigation was mblished, just after the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. In his report it was demonstrated that the great bottom lands bove the Red river, before the construction of their levees did not, as had been supposed, in Louisiana, serve as reservoirs to diminish the maximum wave in great flood seasons. Furthermore, the report argued that no diversion of tributaries was possible; that no reservoirs artificially constructed could keep back the spring freshets which caused the floods; that the making of cut-offs, which had sometimes been advocated as a measure of relief, was in the highest degree injurious; that outlets were impracticable from the lack of suitable sites; and, finally, that levees properly constructed and judiciously placed would afford protection to the entire alluvial region.

During the Civil War (1861-65) the artificial embankments were neglected; but after its close large sums were expended by the states directly interested in repairing them. The work was done without concert upon defective plans, and a great flood early in 1874 inundated the country, causing terrible suffering and loss. Congress, then in session, passed an act creating a commission of five engineers to determine and report on the best system for the permanent reclamation of the entire alluvial region. Their report, rendered in 1875, endorsed the conclusions of that of 1861, and advocated a general levee, system on each bank. This system comprised: (i) a main embankment raised to specified heights sufficient to restrain the floods; and (2) where reasonable security against caving required considerable areas near the river to be thrown out, exterior levees of such a height as to exclude ordinary high waters, but to allow free passage to great floods, which as a rule occur only at intervals of five or six years. An engineering organization was proposed for constructing and maintaining these levees, and a detailed topographical survey was recommended to determine their precise location. Congress promptly approved and ordered the survey; but strong opposition on constitutional grounds was raised to the construction of the levees by the government.

In the meantime complaints began to be heard respecting the low-water navigation of the river below the mouth of the Ohio. A board of five army engineers, appointed in 1878 to consider a plan of relief, reported that a depth of 10 ft. could probably be secured by narrowing the wide places to about 3500 ft. with hurdle work, brush ropes or brush dykes designed to cause a deposit of sediment, and by protecting caving banks by light and cheap mattresses. Experiments in these methods were soon begun and they proved to be effective.

The bars at the efflux of the passes at the mouth of the Mississippi were also serious impediments to commerce. The river naturally discharges through three principal branches, the south-west pass, the south pass and the north-east pass, the latter through two channels, the more northern of which is called Pass a 1'Outre. In the natural condition the greatest depth did not exceed 12 or 13 ft. After appropriations by Congress in 1837, 1852 and 1856, a depth of 18 ft. was finally secured by dredging and scraping. The report of 1861 discussed the subject of bar formation at length, and the stirring up of the bottom by scrapers during the flood stages of the river (six months annually) was recommended by it. After the war this recommendation was carried into effect for several years, but experience showed that not much more than 18 ft. could be steadily maintained. This depth soon became insufficient, and in 1873 the subject was discussed by a board of army engineers, the majority approving a ship canal. In 1874 Congress constituted a special board which, after visiting Europe and examining similar works of improvement there, reported in favour of constructing jetties at the south pass, substantially upon the plan used by Pieter Caland (b. 1826) at the mouth of the Meuse; and in 1875 Captain James B. Eads (1820-1887) and his associates were authorized by Congress to open by contract a deep channel through the south pass upon the general plan proposed by this board. As modified in 1878 and 1879 the contract called for the maintenance for twenty years of a channel through the pass and over the bar not less than 26 ft. in depth throughout, a width of not less than 200 ft. and with a middle depth of -30 ft. The work was begun on the 2nd of June 1875. The required depth was obtained in 1879, and with few interruptions has been maintained. In 1902 Congress authorized preparations for the construction of a deeper (35 ft.) and a wider channel through the south-west pass; the work was begun in 1903 and virtually completed in 1909.

In the year in which Captain Eads opened the south pass of deepwater navigation Congress created a commission of seven members to mature plans for correcting and deepening the channel of the river, for protecting its banks and for preventing floods, and since then large expenditures for improvement between the head of the passes and the mouth of the Ohio have been under the control of this commission. In protecting the banks, mattresses of brush or small trees, woven like basket-work, were sunk on the portion of the bank at the time under water, by throwing rubble stone upon them, an excess of stone being used. A common size of mattress was 800 ft. long, counted along the bank, by 250 ft. wide. Sometimes a width of 300 ft. was used, and lengths have reached 2000 ft. The depth of water was often from 60 to 100 ft. At first these mats were light structures, but the loss of large quantities of bank protection by the caving of the bank behind them, or by scour at their channel edges, forced the commission steadily to increase the thickness and strength of the mattress, so that the cost of the linear foot of bank protection, measured along the bank, rose from $8 or $10 to $30 in the later work. The contraction works adopted were systems of spurs or pile dykes, running out from the shore nearly to the line of the proposed channel. Each dyke consisted of from one to four parallel rows of piles, the interval between rows being about 20 ft. and between piles in a row 8 or 10 ft. The piles and rows were strongly braced and tied together, and in many cases brush was woven into the upper row, forming a hurdle, in order further to diminish the velocity of the water below the spur. By 1893 it was evident that the cost, which had been estimated at $33,000,000 in 1881, would really be several times that amount, and that the works would require heavy expense for their maintenance and many years for their execution. Navigation interests demanded more speedy relief. The commission then began experimenting with hydraulic dredges, and in 1896 it adopted a project for maintaining a channel from the mouth of the Ohio to the passes that should be at least 9 ft. deep and 250 ft. wide throughout the year. Centrifugal pumps are used, the suction pipes being at the bow and the discharge at the stern through a line of pipes about 1000 ft. long, supported on pontoons. Water jets or cutters stir up the material to be dredged before it enters the suction pipes. The later dredges have a capacity of about 1000 cub. yds. of sand per hour, the velocity in the 32- to 34-in. discharge pipes being from 10 to 15 ft. per second. They cost from $86,000 to $120,000, and their working during a low- water season costs about $20,000. These dredges begin work on a bar where trouble is feared before the river reaches its lowest stage, and make a cut through it. A common cut is 2000 ft. long by 250 ft. wide, and 3 or 4 ft. deep. Since 1903 a channel of the proposed depth or more has been maintained.

In 1882 occurred one of the greatest floods known on the Mississippi, and extensive measurements of it were made. A maximum flood of 1,900,000 cub. ft. per second crossed the latitude of Cairo. Much of it escaped into the bottom lands, which are below the level of the great floods, and flowed through them to rejoin the river below. The flow in the river proper at Lake Providence, 542 m. below Cairo, was thus reduced to about 1,000,000 cub. ft. per second, while if the river had been confined by levees the flow between them would have been double, or about 2,000,000 cub. ft. per second. The volume of the levees in 1882 was about 33,000,000 cub. yds., and by the joth of June 1908 had been increased to 219,621,594 cub. yds., of which the United States had built about one-half, and has expended on them $22,562,544. The length of the levees is about 1486 m., and they are continuous save where interrupted by tributaries or by high lands, from New Madrid, or 8p m. below Cairo, to Fort Jackson, 1039 m. below Cairo. The width of the interval between levees on the opposite banks of the river varies greatly; in many places the levees are built much nearer the normal margin of the river than is consistent with keeping the flood heights as low as possible. This has arisen from two causes : firstly, to give Erotection to lands already cultivated, which lie usually near the ank of the river; secondly, to avoid the lower ground, which, owing to the peculiar formation, is found as one goes back from the river. Another bad result of this nearness of the levees to the bank of the river is the loss of levees by caving, which was nearly 5,000,000 cub. yds. in 1904-1905, and can only be prevented by bank protection, costing $150,000 per mile, to protect a levee perhaps 1 6 ft. high costing about $30,000 per mile. The levees have top widths of 8 It., side slopes of one-third, and banquettes when their heights exceed about 10 ft. The grades of the levees are usually 3 ft. above the highest water, and have to be raised from year to year as greater confinement of water gives greater flood heights. When this system is completed there will probably be hundreds of miles of levee with heights exceeding 14 ft. In 1899, after about $28,000,000 had been spent on levees by the United States and by the local authorities, the commission submitted an estimate for additional work on levees, amounting to 124,000,000 cub. yds. and costing $22,000,000. The effect of the levees has been to increase flood heights. Though the Mississippi River Commission was forbidden by Congress to build levees to protect lands from overflow, a majority of its members believed them useful for the purpose of navigation improvement. They have, however, effected no sensible improvement in the navigation of the river at low stages, and at other stages no improvement was needed for the purposes of navigation. Neither did they prevent a destructive flood in 1897 and again in 1903. By the 30th of June 1908, $57,510,216.81 had been appropriated for the commission s work below the mouth of the Ohio.

From the mouth of the Ohio to the mouth of the Missouri, a distance of about 210 m., the river is affected by back water from the Ohio which increases the deposit of sediment, and although the banks increase in height above Cape Girardeau the channel was in its. natural state frequently a mile or more in width, divided by islands, and obstructed by bars on which the low-water depth was only si to 4 ft. The improvement was begun in 1872, and m 1881 a project was adopted for narrowing the channel to approximately 2500 ft. In 1896 dredging was begun and in 1905 the further execution of the original project of 1881 was discontinued, because of a new plan for a channel 14 ft. deep from the Great Lakes to the Gulf.

The Upper Mississippi carries only a small amount of sediment and was navigable in its natural state to St Paul, although at low water the larger river boats could ascend no farther than La Crosse, Wisconsin. In 1879 Congress adopted a project for obtaining a channel with a minimum depth at low water of 4! ft., chiefly by means of contraction works. In 1907 Congress authorized further contraction, dredging, the construction of a lateral cana! at Rock Island Rapids, and the enlargement of that at Des Moines Rapids with a view to obtaining a channel nowhere less than 6 ft. in depth at low water. By means of two locks and dams, which were begun in 1894 and were about three-fourths complete in 1908, a navigable channel of the same depth will be extended from St Paul to Minneapolis. The United States government has constructed dams at the outlets of lakes Winnibigashish, Cass, Leech, Pine, Sandy and Pokegama, and thereby created reservoirs haying a total storage capacity of about 95,000,000,000 cub. ft. This reservoir system, which may be much enlarged, is also beneficial in that it mitigates floods and regulates the flow for manufacturing purposes and for logging.

Although the United States government has expended more than $70,000,000 on the Mississippi river between the mouth of the Missouri and the head of the passes, the improvement of navigation thereon has not been great enough to make it possible for river freighters to force down railway rates by competition. But it is no longer merely a question of competition. The productivity of this region has become so enormous that railways alone cannot meet the requirements of its commerce, and a persistent demand has arisen for a channel 14 ft. deep from the Great Lakes to the Gulf. The first great impetus to this demand was given in 1900, when a canal 24 ft. in depth, and known as the Chicago Drainage Canal, was opened from the Chicago river to Lockport, Illinois, on the Des Plaines river, 34 m. from Lake Michigan. Two years later Congress appropriated $200,000 for the Mississippi River Commission to make a survey and prepare plans, with estimates of cost, for a navigable waterway 14 ft. in depth from Lockport to St Louis. The commission reported favourably in 1905, and in 1907 Congress provided for another commission, which in June 1909 reported against the 14 ft. channel, estimating that it would cost $128,000,000 for construction and $6,000,000 annually for maintenance, and considered a 9-ft. channel (8 ft. between Ohio and St Louis) sufficient for commercial purposes.

The Ohio is commercially the most important tributary, and in flood time most of the commerce on the Lower Mississippi consists of coal and other heavy freight received from the mouth of this river. Its navigation at low water has also been improved by dredging, rock excavation and contraction works. In its upper reaches a channel 9 ft. in depth had been obtained before 1909 by the construction of a number of locks with collapsible dams which are thrown down by a flood. It is the plan of the government to extend this system to the mouth of the river, and it has been estimated that a channel 12 to 14 ft. in depth may ultimately be obtained by a system of mountain reservoirs. Furthermore, the government has given to a corporation a franchise for the connexion of the Ohio at Pittsburg with Lake Erie near Ashtabula, Ohio, by means of a canal 12 ft. in depth. The Missouri is navigable from its mouth to Fort Benton, a distance of 2285 m., and it had become a very important highway of commerce when the first railway, the Hannibal & St Joseph, reached it in 1859. Its commerce then rapidly disappeared, but regular navigation between Kansas City and St Louis was re- established in 1907 and a demand has arisen for a 12-ft. channel from the mouth of the river to Sioux City, Iowa. The Red, Arkansas, White, Tennessee, and Cumberland rivers, which are parts of the Mississippi system, have each a navigable mileage exceeding 600 m.

History. Although the Mississippi river was discovered in its lower course by Hernando de So to in 1541, and possibly by Alonso Alvarez de Pineda in 1519, Europeans were not yet prepared to use the discovery, and two Frenchmen, Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette, first made it generally known to the civilized world by a voyage down the river from the mouth of the Wisconsin to the mouth of the Arkansas in I673. 1 In 1680 Louis Hennepin, sent by La Salle, who planned to acquire for France the entire basin drained by the great river and its tributaries, explored the river from the mouth of the Illinois to the Falls of St Anthony, where the city of Minneapolis now stands, and two years later La Salle himself descended from the mouth of the Illinois, to the Gulf, named the basin " Louisiana," and took formal possession of it in the name of his king, Louis XIV. By the war which terminated (1763) in the Treaty of Paris, Great Britain wrested from France all that part of the basin lying east of the middle of the river (except the island of New Orleans at its mouth), together with equal rights of navigation; and the remainder of the basin France had secretly ceded to Spain in 1762. During the War of Independence the right to navigate the river became a troublesome question. In 1779 the Continental Congress sent John Jay to Spain to negotiate a treaty of commerce, and to insist on the free navigation of the Mississippi, but the Spanish government refused to entertain such a proposition, and new instructions that he might forego that right south of 31 N. latitude reached him too late. While the commissioners from Great Britain and the United States were negotiating a treaty of peace at Paris, Spain, apparently supported by France, sought to prevent the extension of. the western boundary of the United States to the Mississippi, but was unsuccessful, and the United States acquired title in 1783 to all that portion of the basin east of the middle of the river and north of 31 N. lat. In 1785 Congress appointed John Jay to negotiate a commercial treaty with Don Diego de Gardoqui, the Spanish minister to the United States, but the negotiations resulted in nothing. For the next ten years the Spaniards imposed heavy burdens on the American commerce down the Mississippi, but in 1794 James Monroe, the United States minister to France, procured the aid of the French government in further negotiations, for which Thomas Pinckney had been appointed envoy extraordinary, and in 1795 Pinckney negotiated a treaty which granted to the United States the free navigation of the river from its source to the Gulf and the privilege of depositing American merchandise at the port of New Orleans or at some other convenient place on the banks. Spain retroceded Louisiana to France in 1800, but the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 left very little of the Mississippi basin outside of the United States.

As the headwaters of the river were not definitely known, the United States government sent Zebulon M. Pike in 1805 to explore the region, and on reaching Leech Lake, in February 1806, he pronounced that the main source. In 1820 Lewis Cass, governor of Michigan territory, which then had the Mississippi for its western boundary, conducted an expedition into the same region as far as Cass Lake, where the Indians told him that the true source was about 50 m. to the W.N.W., but as the water was too low to proceed by canoe he returned, and it remained for Henry Schoolcraft, twelve years later, to discover Lake Itasca, which occupies a low depression near the centre of the basin in which the river takes its rise. Jean N. Nicollet, while in the service .of the United States government, visited Lake Itasca in 1836, and traced its principal affluent, since known as Nicollet's Infant Mississippi river, a few' miles S.S.W. from the lake's western arm. Jacob Vradenberg Brower (1844-1905), who was commissioned by the Minnesota Historical Society in 1889 to make'a more detailed survey, traced the source from Nicollet's Infant Mississippi to the greater ultimate reservoir, which contains several lakelets, and lies beyond Lake Itasca, 2553 m. by water from the Gulf of Mexico, and 1558 ft. above the sea. Soon after this survey the state of Minnesota created Itasca State Park, which contains both Itasca Lake and its affluents from the south.

1 It seems probable that Joliet and Marquette were preceded by two other Frenchmen, Pierre Esprit Radisson and Menard Chouart des Groseilliers, who apparently reached the Upper Mississippi in or about 1665; but their claim to priority has been the subject of considerable controversy, and, at all events, there was no general knowledge of the river until after the voyage of Joliet and Marquette.

From the close of the 17th century until the building of the first railways in the Mississippi basin, in the middle of the 19th century, the waterways of the Mississippi system afforded practically the only means of communication in this region. During the early years of the French occupancy trade with the Indians was the only important industry, and this was carried on almost wholly with birch canoes and a few pirogues; but by 1720 immigrants were coming in considerable numbers both by way of the Great Lakes and the mouth of the Mississippi, and to meet the demands of a rapidly expanding commerce barges and keelboats were introduced. The development of the Mississippi Valley must have been slow until the railways came had it not been for the timely application of the power of steam to overcome the strong current of the Lower Mississippi. Even without the steamboat, however, the Mississippi was indispensable to the early settlers, and the delay of the United States in securing for them its free navigation resulted in threats of separation from the Union. The most formidable movement of this kind was that of 1787-1788, in which James Wilkinson, who had been an officer in the War of Independence, plotted for a union with Spain. Steamboat navigation on this river system was begun in 181 1, when the " New Orleans," which had been built by Nicholas Roosevelt (1767-1854), made the trip from Pittsburg to New Orleans, but it was six years later before the steamboat was sufficiently improved to ascend to St Louis. In 1817 the commerce from New Orleans to the Falls of the Ohio, at Louisville, was carried in barges and keel-boats having a capacity of 60 to 80 tons each, and 3 to 4 months were required to make a trip. In 1820 steamboats were making the same trip in 15 to 20 days, by 1838 in 6 days or less; and in 1834 there were 230 steamboats, having an aggregate tonnage of 39,000 tons, engaged in trade on the Mississippi. Large numbers of flat boats, especially from the Ohio and its tributaries, continued to carry produce down stream ; an extensive canal system in the state of Ohio, completed in 1842, connected the Mississippi with the Great Lakes; these were connected with the Hudson river and the Atlantic Ocean by the Erie Canal, which had been open since 1825. Before the steamboat was successfully employed on the Mississippi the population of the valley did not reach 2,000,000, but the population increased from approximately 2,500,000 in 1820 to more than 6,000,000 in 1840, and to 14,000,000 or more in 1860. The well-equipped passenger boats of the period immediately preceding the Civil War were also a notable feature on the Ohio and the Lower Mississippi.

In the Civil War the Lower Mississippi, the Ohio, and its two largest tributaries the Cumberland and the Tennessee being still the most important lines of communication west of the Appalachian Mountains, determined largely the movements of armies. The adherence of Kentucky to the Union excluded the Confederacy from the Ohio, but especially disastrous was the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, whereby the Confederacy was cut in two and the entire Mississippi became a Federal highway. Under Federal control it was closed to commerce, and when the war was over the prosperity of the South was temporarily gone and hundreds of steamboats had been destroyed. Moreover, much of the commerce of the West had been turned from New Orleans, via the Mississippi, to the Atlantic seaboard, via the Great Lakes and by new lines of railways, the number of which rapidly increased. There was, of course, some revival of the Mississippi commerce immediately after the war, but this was checked by the bar at the mouth of the south-west pass. Relief was obtained through the Eads jetties at the mouth of the south pass in 1879, but the facilities for the transfer of freight were far inferior to those employed by the railways, and the steamboat companies did not prosper. But at the Beginning of the 20th century the prospects of communication with the western coast of North America and South America, and with the Orient by way of an isthmian canal, the inadequate means of transportation afforded by the railways, the efficiency of competing waterways in regulating freight rates, and the consideration of the magnificent system of inland waterways which the Mississippi and its tributaries would afford when fully developed, improvement.

have created the strong demand for river -A. P. C. Griffin, The Discovery of the Mississippi: graphical Account (New York, 1883); I. G. Shea, The biscovery of the Mississippi, in Report and Collections of the State ?? et y of Wisconsin, vol. vii. (Madison, 1876) ; J.V. Brower the Mississippi River and its Sources: a Narrative and Critical History of the Discovery of the River and its Headwaters (Minneapolis 1893); K A. Ogg The Opening of the Mississippi: a Struggle for Supremacy in the American Interior (New York, 1904) ; E. W. Gould Fifty Years on the Mississippi; or, Gould's History of River Navigation (St Louis, 1889); J. W. Monette, The Progress of Navigation a Commerce on the Waters of the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes, in the Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, vol. vii. (Oxford Miss., 1903) ; R. B. Haughton, The Influence of the Mississippi River upon the Eary Settlement of Its Valley, in the Publications of the M'l s ! s ?{PPi Hlsto " ca ' Society, vol. iv. ; Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (Boston, 1883); A. A. Humphreys and H. L. Abbot, Report on the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River (Philadelphia 1 86 1 ) -Annual Reports of the Mississippi River Commission ( Washing?"; I . l8 ??- Sq - q - ) . ; E .- L - Corthell, A History of the Jetties at the Mouth of the Mississippi River (New York, 1881); J. A. Ockerson, The Mississippi River: Some of its Physical Characteristics and Measures employed for the Regulation and Control of the Stream (Paris, 1900)- J. L. Mathews, Remaking the Mississippi (Boston, 1909); R. M.

, . .

/T n> T, The M'ssissippi River from Cape Girardeau to the Head of the Passes, m Bulletins of the American Geographical Society, vols. xxxiv. and xxxv. (New York, 1902 and 1903); J. L. Greenleal, the Hydrology of the Mississippi," in the American Journal of Science vol. n. (New Haven, 1896); L. M. Haupt, " The Mississippi Kiver Problem, m Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. xlm. (Philadelphia, 1904).

Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)

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