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The above map is modified from an original, copyright by Andrew Birrell and Ray Sterner. Click on Mr. Birrell's name just above and you can view other wonderful maps.
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by Isaac Angert
The Mississippi drains 1,245,000 square miles (41% of America). Geographically it is the forth longest river in the world after Africa's Nile, the Amazon of South America, and the Congo in central Africa. Its watershed ranks third among the world's rivers; after that of the Amazon and the Congo. Its discharge into the gulf is again third after the same two rivers, with a volume of 651,000 cubic feet per second at its mouth.
Flowing through The Great Plains the Mississippi changes little in elevation, only 1475 ft. from its headwaters in a small Minnesota lake called Itasca. It meanders through pine forests and marsh in northern Minnesota forming the shape of a question mark. The river spills over St. Anthony falls and heads south to flow between towering bluffs in Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois. When it drops into Missouri it is met by the Illinois, the Ohio and the Missouri rivers. The Missouri doubles the Mississippi and the Ohio doubles it again. With its flow quadrupled the Mighty Mississippi moves out into the delta. Here the Mississippi finally has the room to meander through cotton fields. There are no hills on the delta until the river changes course and runs up against the bluffs at Vicksburg. At the town of St.Francisville it leaves the bluffs again, this time for good, as it goes off through swamps and bayous to unload its silt at the end.
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