already alluded. Nearly a thousand of the inhabitants of the State were subjected to the most cruel outrages and butchered in cold blood. It seemed at first that this would paralyze the young State, and prevent its growth for a long time. But it had just the contrary effect. The summary and terrible punishment inflicted on the Sioux for their atrocious crimes and their prompt ejectment from the State, encouraged immigration, and in the eighteen years which have since elapsed, the State has grown with wonderful rapidity. The railroad controversy, involving the power of the State to limit and reduce the charges for freight, to which all the States of the Northwest were in a greater or less degree participants, was less severe or protracted in Minnesota than in some of the other States, and was amicably settled. In the extent and fertility of her soil; in the cheapness of choice lands, whether purchased from the United States, the State or the railways; in the accessibility of every settled county of the State to the best markets, thereby securing high prices for her products; in her abundant water and all the facilities for successful manufacturing; in the excellence of her educational system and its expansion over the whole State, and in the moral and religious character of its inhabitants, the immigrant will find Minnesota, as a home for himself and his children, unsurpassed by any State or Territory in "Our Western Empire." CHAPTER XII. MISSOURI. - BUILDING MISSOURI'S SITUATION, BOUNDARIES AND EXTENT OF LATITUDE AND LONGI- MINING PRODUCTS-RAILROADS-POPULATION-NOTES ON POPULATION— COUNTIES AND CITIES-TABLE OF CITIES-ST. LOUIS-KANSAS CITY-LANDS FOR IMMIGRANTS-IMMIGRATION IN THE PAST-WHY IT HAS LARGELY PASSED BY MISSOURI-THE STATE NOW A Desirable ONE FOR IMMIGRANTS-EDUCATIONAL ADVANTAGES-PUBLIC SCHOOLS-NORMAL SCHOOLS-Universities— COLLEGES AND PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS-SPECIAL INSTITUTIONS-RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS AND CHURCHES-HISTORICAL DATES. MISSOURI is one of the central belt of the States of “Our Western Empire," having the Mississippi for its eastern boundary, and the Missouri in part for its western. It extends (including a small tract lying between the Mississippi and the St. Francis rivers) from the parallel of 36° to that of 40° 30' north latitude, and from the meridian of 89° 2' to that of 95° 44' west longitude from Greenwich. Its greatest length from north to south is about 309 miles; its greatest breadth from east to west 318 miles, and its average breadth about 244 miles. It is bounded on the north by Iowa, the parallel of 40° 30′ forming the dividing line from the Missouri river to the Des Moines, and thence down the channel of that river to the Mississippi; on the east it is bounded by the Mississippi river, which separates it from Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee; south by Arkansas, on the line of 36° from the Mississippi to the St. Francis river and from the St. Francis to the meridian of 94° 38′, the parallel of 36° 30'; on the west by the Indian Territory, Kansas and Nebraska, following the meridian of 94° 38', from the Arkansas line to the mouth of the Kansas river, and from that point to the parallel of 40° 30', the channel of the Missouri river. Its area is 65,370 square miles, or 41,836,931 acres, the whole of which has been surveyed. Face of the Country.-The State is divided into two unequal portions by the Missouri river, which crosses it from west to east, and also forms its northwestern boundary. The portion south of the Missouri, which forms about two-thirds of the territory of the State, has a very varied surface. In the southeast, the region lying between the Mississippi and the St. Francis rivers, as far north as near the parallel of Cape Girardeau, is very low and swampy and subject to frequent overflow by the Mississippi and its tributaries. This comprises all the land lying opposite to Tennessee, Kentucky, and most of Alexander county, FACE OF THE COUNTRY. 929 Illinois. Above this, a little below Cape Girardeau, the highland bluffs commence, and extend up to the mouth of the Missouri. Between St. Genevieve and the mouth of the Meramec these bluffs, which are solid masses of limestone, rise from 250 to 360 feet above the river, and extend westward across the State, but are less precipitous and rugged as they approach the Osage river. In the south and southwestern portion of the State, the Ozark mountains, or, rather, hills, occupy a considerable portion of the country; they form no continuous or systematic ranges, but render the whole region exceedingly broken and hilly, the isolated peaks and rounded summits (buttes they would be called farther west) sometimes rising from 500 to 1,000 feet above their bases, and then sinking into very beautiful and often very fertile valleys. Though not distinctly defined, the general course of this hilly region is slightly north of east from the southeastern border of Kansas, where it enters the State to the Mississippi river. Beginning as a broad arable plateau, it slopes gently to the water courses on either side, and with fine farming lands even on its highest levels. For one-third of the distance across the State it possesses no characteristic of a mountain range, and from thence as it extends eastwardly its ridges become gradually more irregular and precipitous, until near the centre of the range they begin to break up into a series of knobs and hills, which finally attain their highest elevation at Iron Mountain and Pilot Knob, in the eastern portion of the State. The numerous river bottoms formed by the tributaries of the Osage and Missouri rivers are generally fertile, but most of them are subject to overflow. Farther north, in the basin of the Osage and above it, the land is mostly rolling prairie with occasional forests; the immediate valley of the Missouri is a rich alluvial valley of great fertility, and abounding in forest trees of magnificent size and circumference. North of the Missouri the country is generally either rolling or level prairie, though with considerable tracts of timber; it forms a part of that great bed of the prehistoric lake more than 500 miles from shore to shore, through which the Missouri formerly flowed, and which included the greater part of Iowa and Eastern Nebraska, and its surface soils, for many feet in depth, are composed of loess or silty deposits; the tributaries of both the Mississippi and Missouri have worn deep channels through the rocks, and the valleys of erosion thus made, as well as the surface and soil of this entire region north of the Missouri, are very similar to those of Iowa. The river bottoms are exceedingly rich and productive. Rivers and Lakes.-The Mississippi river forms the entire eastern boundary of the State, for a distance of 540 miles. The Missouri river flows along its western boundary, separating it from the States of Nebraska and Kansas, for a distance of 250 miles, and then flows eastwardly entirely across the State, until it joins the Mississippi upon the eastern boundary, twenty miles above St. Louis, a distance of 450 miles; thus giving the State a shore line upon these two great inland arteries of commerce of upwards of 1,550 miles. The tributaries of the Mississippi on its west bank in this State are, with the exception of the Missouri, mostly small and of no great importance. The St. Francis and its largest tributary, the Little river, as well as the White with its numerous branches, forks, and its tributaries, the Black, Current, Paint and Spring rivers, all belong to Arkansas, and enter the Mississippi in that State. The Meramec and its principal tributary, the Big river, is the only considerable affluent of the Mississippi in the State south of the Missouri. North of that river, Salt river is the largest affluent, but the Cuivre or Copper river, North river, South, Middle and North Fabius, Wyaconda and Fox rivers, are streams of considerable size. The Missouri receives numerous large affluents in the State. On the south side are the Lamine river, the Osage (a large and beautiful stream), with its tributaries, the Little Osage, Marmiton, Sac river, Grand river, Pomme de Terre, Big and Little Niangua, Auglaize, and Marie's creek; and Gasconade river, with its Osage, Lick and Piney Forks. On the north side there are the Nishnabatona, the Big and Little Tarkio, Nodaway, Platte, Grand (with fourteen considerable tributaries), Chariton (with seven or eight), Rocher Perché, Cedar, Muddy and L'Outre creeks. In the southwest the Neosho, an affluent of the Arkansas, with its tributaries, drains six or eight GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 931 counties. Wherever the Great American Desert may be, it is certain that no part of it is in a State whose every county is so abundantly watered by large and small streams as Missouri. There are comparatively few lakes in the State. In the southeast there are extensive swamps, overflowed at seasons of high water like those on the Atlantic coast. In St. Charles county, between the Missouri and the Mississippi, there are a number of small lakes. In the northwestern part of the State, in Platte, Buchanan and Holt counties, there are several lakes of considerable size. The Missouri, as well as the Mississippi, at times widens into a wide expanse of water dotted with islands. Geology and Mineralogy-The geology of Missouri may be briefly summed up as follows: 1. Quaternary (alluvium, bluff, and drift or loess) deposits, found in greater or less degree all over the State, but especially deep and thick in the southeastern counties, Ripley, Butler, Dunklin, Pemiscot, New Madrid, Mississippi, Scott, Stoddard, and portions of Carter, Wayne and Bollinger, as well as through the immediate valley or bottom lands of the Missouri, to the point in the northwest at which it enters the State. There are no tertiary, cretaceous, triassic or jurassic groups in the State, but we come below the quaternary immediately upon-2. The upper carboniferous, which with-3. The lower carboniferous, covers 23,000 square miles of the State. There are in these two formations, the upper, middle and lower coal, and the Clear creek sandstone of the upper carboniferous, and six successive deposits of the lower carboniferous, comprising an unclassified sandstone, and the St. Louis, Keokuk and Chouteau groups of limestones and sandstones, most of them rich in fossils. This great coal field occupies in general the western, northwestern and northern portions of the State. Next in order, and for the most part immediately adjacent to the coal measures, are-4. Three considerable tracts of Devonian rocks, one in the southwest, another in the northeastern part of the State, and the third a narrow belt which follows the eastern edge of the carboniferous deposits in all their devious lines, and extends southeast to the immediate vicinity of St. Louis. The only strictly Devonian rocks in the State are the Hamilton and Onondaga groups, both mainly limestones. |