The Abbeville Banner

VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.-Mr. Benton, in his letter to the Chicago Convention, said,
"The river navigation of the great West is the most wonderful on the globe; and since the application of steam power to the propulsion of vessels, possesses the essential qualities of open navigation. Speed, distance, cheapness, magnitude of cargoes, are all there, and without the perils of the sea from storms and enemies. The steamboat is the ship of the river, and finds in the Mississippi and its tributaries the amplest theatre for the diffusion of its use, and the display of its power. Wonderful river; connected with seas by the head, and by the mouth--stretching its arms towards the Atlantic and the Pacific--lying in a valley which is a valley from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson's Bay--drawing its first waters not from rugged mountains, but from the plateau of the Lakes in the centre of the Continent, and in communication with the sources of the St. Lawrence and the streams which take their course north to Hudson's Bay--draining the largest extent of the richest land--collecting the products of every clime, even the frigid, to bear the whole to a genial market in the sunny South, and there to meet the products of the entire world. Such is the Mississippi! And who can calculate the aggregate of its advantages, and magnitude of its future commercial results?
Many years ago, the late Governor Clark and myself undertook to calculate the extent of the boatable water in the valley of the Mississippi; we made it about 50,000 miles! of which 30,000 were computed to unite above St. Louis, and 20,000 below. Of course we counted all the infant streams on which a flat, a keel, or a batteau could be floated, and justly; for every tributary of the humblest boatable character helps to swell not only the volume of the central waters, but of the commerce upon them."