In no country in the world has railroad building been carried on with so much enterprise as in our native land.  Prior to the enormous expenditure on track building and railroad equipment, advantage had to be taken of the extraordinary opportunities for navigation and transportation afforded by the great waterways of the country.  As railroads were naturally built in the East before the West, the value of our Middle and Western waterways is naturally best understood by the average reader, because they continued to play an indispensable part in the transaction of business of every character until quite a recent period.

The Eastern rivers are less magnificent in extent and volume than those of the West, though many of them are picturesque and attractive in the extreme.  The Hudson has often been spoken of as the “Thames of America,” not because there is any resemblance between the length of the two rivers upon which are situated the two greatest cities of modern times.  The simile is the result rather of the immense number of costly family residences and summer resorts built along the banks of both rivers.

In another chapter we say something of a trip down the picturesque Hudson, whose banks are lined with historic landmarks and points of pressing interest.  We give an illustration of a pleasure boat on the Hudson, which reminds one of many delightful river trips taken at various periods, and also of the events of national importance which centered around the river that is crowded, year after year, with pleasure-seekers from the overcrowded metropolis at its mouth.

The Mississippi River is the largest and grandest in North America.  A few miles above St. Louis it is joined by the Missouri River, and if the distance from the source of the latter to the Gulf of Mexico be calculated, the longest river in the world is found.  At a considerable distance from the source of the Father of Waters are the Falls of St. Anthony, discovered more than two hundred years ago by enterprising pioneers, who thought they had discovered the headwaters of the great river.  The scenery of the river at the falls and beyond them is very attractive, and in many cases so beautiful as to be beyond verbal description.  In many other parts of the river the scenery is grand, though occasionally there are long stretches of flat country which are inclined to become monotonous and barren of poetic thought.

Of the entire river, Mr. L. U. Reavis writes enthusiastically: 

“The more we consider the subject,” says this author, “the more we are compelled to admit that the Mississippi is a wonderful river, and that no man can compute its importance to the American people.  What the Nile is to Egypt, what the great Euphrates was to ancient Assyria, what the Danube is to Europe, what the Ganges is to India, what the Amazon is to Brazil—­all this, and even more than this, the Mississippi River is to the North American Continent.