and skirted at the farthest ken of the eye with hills and forests.Above you, on the same shore, is the valley of the Illinois, itself bounded by hoary and magnificent bluffs of a peculiar character. The river brings in its creeping waters by a deep bed, that seems almost as straight as a canal. You have in view the valleys and bluffs of two noble streams, that join their waters to the Mississippi. You see the Mississippi changed to a turbid and sweeping stream, with jagged and indented banks, below you. You see its calm and placid waters above the Missouri. On the opposite prairie, there are level meadows, wheat fields, corn fields, smokes ascending from houses and cabins, vast flocks of domestic cattle,— distinct indications of agriculture and improvement blended with the grand features of nature. There are clumps of trees, lakes, ponds, and flocks of sea fowl, wheeling their flight over them; in short, whatever of grandeur, or beauty, nature can furnish to soothe, and to enrapture the beholder.

From the mouth of the Ohio, the scene shifts, and the bluffs are generally nearest the eastern shore; though on that shore there are often twenty miles between them and the river. They come quite in to the river, which washes their bases at the Iron banks, the Chalk banks, the first, second and third Chickasaw bluffs, Memphis, the Walnut hills, Grand and Petit gulfs, Natchez, Loftus' heights, St. Francisville and Baton Rouge. In all this distance, bluffs are only seen in one place on the west side-the St. Francis hills.

From the sources of the river to the mouth of the Missouri, the annual flood ordinarily commences in March, and does not subside until the last of May; and its medial height is fifteen feet. At the lowest stages, four feet of water may be found from the rapids of Des Moines to the mouth of the Missouri. Between that point and the mouth of the Ohio, there are six feet in the channel of the shallowest places at low water; and the annual inundation may be estimated at twenty-five feet. Between the mouth of the Ohio and the St. Francis, there are various shoal places, where pilots are often perplexed to find a sufficient depth of water, when the river is low. Below that point, there is no difficulty for vessels of any draught, except to find the right channel. Below the mouth of the Ohio, the medial flood is fifty feet; the highest, sixty.Above Natchez, the flood begins to decline. At Baton Rouge, it seldom exceeds thirty feet; and at New Orleans, twelve. Some have supposed this gradual diminution of the flood to result from the draining of the numerous effluxes of the river, that convey away such considerable portions of its waters, by separate channels to the sea. To this should be added, no doubt, the check, which the river at this distance begins to feel from the re-action of the sea where this mighty mass of descending waters finds its level.

Below the mouth of Ohio, in the season of inundation, to an observing spectator a very striking spectacle is presented. The river, as will elsewhere be observed, sweeps along in curves, or sections of circles, of an extent from six to twelve miles, measured from point to point. The sheet of water, that is visible between the forests on either side, is, as we have remarked, not far from the medial width of a mile. On a calm spring morning, and under a bright sun, this sheet of water, to an eye, that takes in its gentle descending declivity, shines, like a mass of burnished silver. Its edges are distinctly marked by a magnificent outline of cotton wood trees, generally of great size, and at this time of the year,of the brightest verdure. On the convex, or bar side of the bend, there is generally a vigorous growth of willows, or young cotton wood trees, of such astonishing regularity of appearance, that it always seems to the unpractised spectator, a work of art. The water stands among these trees, from ten to fifteen feet in height.Those brilliant birds, the black and red bird of this country, seem to delight to flit among these young groves, that are inundated to half their height. Nature is carrying on her most vigorous efforts of vegetation below. If there be wind or storm, the descending flat or keel boats immediately make for these groves, and plunge fearlessly, with all the headway they can command, among the trees. Should they be of half the size of the human body, struck fifteen feet from the ground, they readily bend before even a frail boat. You descend the whole distance of a thousand miles to New Orleans, landing at night in fifteen feet water among the trees; but, probably, in no instance within twenty miles of the real shore, which is the bluff. The whole spectacle is that of a vast and magnificent forest, emerging from a lake, with its waters, indeed, in a thousand places in descending motion. The experienced savage, or solitary voyager, paddles his canoe through the deep forests, from one bluff to the other. He finds bayous, by which one river communicates with the other. He moves, perhaps, along the Mississippi forest into the mouth of White river. He ascends that river a few miles, and by the Grand Cut-off moves down the forest into the Arkansas. From that river he finds many bayous, which communicate readily with Washita and Red river; and from that river, by some one of its hundred bayous, he finds his way into the Atchafalaya and the Teche; and by that stream to the gulf of Mexico, reaching it more than twenty leagues west of the Mississippi. At that time, this is a river from thirty to an hundred miles wide, all overshadowed with forest, except an interior strip of little more than a mile in width, where the eye reposes on the open expanse of waters, visible between the trees.

Each of the hundred rivers, that swell the Mississippi, at the 'time of high waters, is more or less turbid. The upper Mississip‐

pi is the most transparent of all of them in low water. But, during the floods, it brings down no inconsiderable portion of dark, slimy mud, suspended in its waters. The mud of the Missouri is as copious, as the water can hold in suspension,-and is whitish in color, much resembling water, in which fresh ashes have been mixed. The river below the Missouri assumes the color of that river. The Ohio brings in a flood, compared with the other, of a greenish color. The mixing of the waters of the upper Mississippi with the Missouri, and afterwards of the united stream with the Ohio, affords an amusing spectacle. The water of the Ohio is not much charged with earth, even at its inundation; but is still perceptibly turbid. The St. Francis and White rivers, at their floods, are not much stained. The Arkansas, when high, is as turbid, and holds nearly as much mud in suspension, as the Missouri; and its waters have a bright reddish color, almost that of flame. Its Indian name, Ozark, implies Yellow river. Red river brings in a turbid mixture of the same thickness, but of a darker

After it has received these two rivers, the Mississippi loses something of its whiteness. The hills far up the Missouri, Arkansas and Red rivers are washing down. Pillars on their sides, of gigantic dimensions, bright colors, and regular forms, where they have been composed of an indurated earth, or clay, that more strongly resisted the action of rains and descending waters, are left standing. We have seen and admired these mementos of the lapse of time, the changes, that our earth is undergoing, the washing of waters, and the influence of the elements. Lewis and Clark speak of these remains of dilapidated hills far up the Missouri, where they appeared in their grandest dimensions.

The Mississippi, then, may be considered, as constantly bearing beneath its waters a tribute of the finest and most fertile vegetable soil, collected from an hundred shores, hills and mountains, and transplanted from distances of a thousand leagues. The marl of the Rocky mountains, the earth of the Alleghanies, the red loam, washed from the hills at the sources of the Arkansas and Red rivers, are every year deposited in layers along the alluvion of the Mississippi; or are washed into the gulf of Mexico. We can have little doubt, that this river once found its estuary not far below the present mouth of the Ohio. It was, probably, then thirty miles broad, and grew wider quite to the gulf. The alluvial country below, must then have been an arm of the sea. The different bluffs on its eastern shore, the Chickasaw bluffs, Natchez, and the other hills, whose bases the river now washes, were capes, that projected into this estuary. The banks of the river are evidently gaining in height above the inundation. The deposites of earth, sand and slime are not as equal in their layers, as we might suppose; but might, perhaps, be assumed, as depositing a twelfth of an inch in the annual inundation.

As soon as the descending mass of waters has swept over the banks, being comparatively destitute of current, and impeded, moreover, by trees and bushes, it begins to deposite a sediment of that mud and sand, which were only held in suspension by the ra pidity and agitation of the descending current. It must be obvi ous, that the sand and the coarser portion of the mixture of earth will subside first; and that near the banks of the river will be the most copious deposition. We find, in fact, the soil contiguous to the rivers most sandy. It becomes finer and more clayey, as we recede farther from the bank, until near the bluffs; and at the farthest distances from the river, the impalpable mixture gradually subsides, forming a very stiff, black soil, called 'terre graisse,' and having a feeling, when wet, like lard or grease. Circumstances, such as eddies, and other impediments, resulting from the constant changes of the banks, may cause this earth, in particular positions, to be deposited near the river. Where the banks have fallen in, and discovered the under strata of the soil, we often see layers of this earth directly on the shore. But the natural order of deposi tion is, first, the sand; next, the marl; and last of all, this impalpable clay, which would of course be longest held suspended.

This order of deposition accounts, too, for another circumstance appertaining to the banks of this river, and all its lower tributaries, that do now, or did formerly, overflow their banks. It always creates surprise at first view, to remark, that all these rivers have alluvions, that are highest directly on the banks, and slope back, like a natural glacis, towards the bluffs. There are a thousand points, between the mouth of Ohio and New Orleans, where, at the highest inundation, there is a narrow strip of land above the overflow; and it is directly on the bank. But the land slopes back, and subsides under the overflow; and is, perhaps, twenty feet under water at the bluffs. This deceptive appearance has induced a common opinion, that this river, its tributaries and bayous, in their lower courses, run through their valleys on an elevated ridge, and occupy the highest part of their bottoms. The greater comparative elevation on the banks notwithstanding, we have not the slightest doubt, that the path of the rivers is, in fact, the deepest part of their basin, and that the bed of the river is uniformly lower, than the lowest point of alluvion at the base of the bluffs.

BIRDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

This country, embracing all the varieties of the climate of the country east of the mountains, might be supposed to have the same birds, and those birds of the same habits. The former is true, and the latter is not. We have noted no birds in the Atlantic country, that we have not seen here. We have many, that are not seen there; and those, that are common to both regions, have not the same habits here, as there. We have no doubt, that cultivation and the habitancy of civilized man affect the habits, and even the residence of birds. There are many in the more populous and cultivated regions beyond the mountains, that seem to belong to orchards and gardens, and that appear to exult and be at home only in the midst of fruit arbors, and groves reared by art and luxury. It is remarked in the more populous and cultivated districts of the West, that in proportion, as the wilderness disappears, and is replaced by apple, pear, peach and plumb trees, and fruit gardens, that the birds, which cheered the infancy of the immigrants, and whose notes are associated in recollection with the charms of youthful existence, and the tender remembrances of the natal spot, and a distant and forsaken country, are found among the recent orchards. Every immigrant, especially, who was reared in New England, remembers the magpie, the bird of half formed leaves, of planting, and the freshness of spring. He remembers to have heard them chattering in the meadows, almost to tiresomeness. They are occasionally seen in the middle and northern regions of this valley. They are seldom heard to sing, and are only known by the lover of nature, who hears in the air, as they pass over his head, the single note, which they utter at the East, when they are leaving that country. Some years since, in Missouri, we saw a number of the males gathered on a spray, in the midst of a low prairie, of a sunny morning, after a white frost. They were chattering away in their accustomed style. But they did but half carry out the song, that we used to hear in the meadows of New England, leaving a painful break in the middle, and reminding us of the beautiful passage in the psalms, touching the exiles on the streams of Babylon.

Robin, turdus migratorius. The robin-redbreast in the northern Atlantic country is, more than any other, the bird of orchards and gardens, and is there almost identified with the affections of man. This delightful bird, in many places protected from the gun by public feeling, sings there such an unpretending, and yet sweet song, that the inhabitants need not regret wanting the nightingale. In the West, this bird makes annual visits; and is seen in the autumn,