The Mississippi River, as ordinarily regarded, has its head waters in
a chain of lakes situated mainly in Beltrami and Cass counties,
Minnesota. The lake most distant from the north is Elk Lake, so named
in the official surveys of the U.S. Land Office. A short stream flows
from Elk Lake to Lake Itaska, a beautiful sheet of water, considerably
larger than Elk Lake. From Lake Itaska it flows in a general
northeasterly direction, receiving the waters of innumerable springs
and ponds, among them Lake Bemidji, a body of water equal in size to
Lake Itaska. After a course of 135 miles the steam flows into Cass
Lake, absorbing in the meantime the waters of another chain of lakes,
discharged through Turtle River. From Cass Lake the waters flow a
distance of twenty miles, and are poured into Lake Winnibigoshish. The
latter has an area of eighty square miles; it is twice the size of
Cass Lake and more than six times that of Lake Itaska. From Lake
Winnibigoshish to the point where it receives the discharge of Leech
Lake, the river flows through an open savannah, from a quarter of a
mile to a mile in width. Forty miles beyond are Pokegama Falls. Here
the river flows from Pokegama Lake, falling about fourteen feet before
quiet water is reached. All the country about the headwaters is
densely wooded with Norway pine on the higher ground, and with birch,
maple, poplar and tamarack on the lower ground. Between Pokegama Falls
and the Falls of St. Anthony, the river receives the waters of a
number of other similar streams, all flowing from the lake region.
At St. Paul the navigable stage of the river practically begins,
although there is more or less navigable water above the falls at
certain seasons. From St. Paul to Cairo the river flows between
bluffs, the terraces of Champlain times, from ten to fifty miles
apart. Between the bluffs are the bottom lands, often coincident with
the flood plain, along which the river channel wanders in a devious
course of 1,100 miles. The soil of the bottom lands is, of course,
alluvial, and was deposited by the river during past ages; that beyond
the bluffs is a part of the great intermontane plain, and is
sedentary--that is, it has not been materially disturbed since the
plain was raised above the sea level by the uplift of the continent.
From Cairo, at the junction of the Ohio River, the plain to the
southward is nearly all made land, and in a few spots only does the
river touch soil which it has not itself made. Here the Lower
Mississippi proper begins, and here, at some not far distant time in
the past,[2] was the head of the Gulf of Mexico. A fuller description
of the Lower Mississippi is unnecessary here, inasmuch as the
following pages are mainly devoted to this part alone.
[Footnote 2: Estimated at from 100,000 to 150,000 years. Such
estimates, however, are but little better than guesses.]