The Probert Encyclopaedia of Places of the World

MISSISSIPPI

Mississippi is a southern state of the USA. Mississippi was admitted as a State December 10, 1817. It was explored by De Soto, a Spaniard, in 1539, and by the Frenchmen, Joliet and Marquette, who came down the Mississippi in 1673. In 1682 La Salle took formal possession of the territory for the King of France. Biloxi was. settled by the French under Iberville in 1699. The first permanent settlement of Mississippi being made by some Frenchmen in 1716 at Natchez, then called Fort Rosalie.

After the Louisiana bubble the colonies in Mississippi grew slowly. The French ceded the territory to England in 1763, and it was included within the State of Georgia until 1798, when it was organized as a territory by the US Government under provisions like those of the Ordinance of 1787, with the exception of the article relative to slavery. An ordinance of secession was passed by a State Convention the January the 7th, 1861, but was not submitted to a popular vote. The State furnished the President, Jefferson Davis, of the Confederacy. Mississippi was readmitted to the Union on February the 23rd, 1870. In 1875 the white 'Democracy' resorted to intimidation to keep the blacks from the polls, and succeeded in securing possession of the State.

The Mississippi (meaning 'Great Water'), is the principal river of North America, and one of the largest rivers in the world. It has its source in Lake Itasca, in the state of Minnesota, whence it issues about 12 feet wide and 2 feet deep; from theree it trends southward through a number of lakes and over a series of rapids until the Falls of St. Anthony are reached; below this it receives the Iowa, the Illinois, and the Missouri as tributaries, but the latter is really the main stream, having a length of 2908 miles before the rivers unite, while that of the Mississippi is only 1330 miles. From St Louis, a little below their confluence, the Mississippi becomes a broad, rapid, muddy river, liable to overflow its banks; lower down it receives in succession the Ohio, Arkansas, and Red rivers, and it finally enters the Gulf of Mexico through a large delta with several 'passes', some distance below New Orleans. The combined lengths of the Missouri and Mississippi are about 4200 miles; the whole area drained by the Mississippi is 1,246,000 square miles; the maximum flood volume reaches 1,400,000 cubic feet per second below the Ohio; and the sediment transported to the gulf annually would make a solid block one mile square and 260 feet high.

Above its junction with the Ohio at Cairo the river enters upon a large alluvial basin, bounded on both sides by high bluffs, and through this plain the river winds for about 1150 miles. The volume is usually smallest in October and greatest in April, and the low-lying lands are subject to terrible floodings during the spring freshets. At many places attempts have been made to secure the river within its banks and save the country from loss and suffering by building dykes, or levees as they are called. The sediment carried down, however, is continually raising the bed of the river, and thus breaks are frequently made in these levees. A later method of improving the river's course, sanctioned by Congress and superintended by Captain Eads, was to construct light willow screens or dams on the shoals and at the wide places on the river where bars already exist. By this a deposit was formed which in time acts as a bank to hem in the river, while the increased volume thus obtained helps to scour out a deeper channel. The most important towns on the river banks are St Paul, St Louis, Cairo, Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez, and New Orleans.

Mississippi is a township in Jersey County, Illinois, USA.
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