River

a considerable stream of water flowing through the land. Rivers are surface drains carrying the water from rain and snow downward to sea level. The current is due to gravity. Owing to the spheroidal shape of the earth, the mouth of the Mississippi River is farther from the center of the earth than is its source. The same statement holds true for any large river flowing southward in the northern hemisphere. In thus flowing farther from the center of the earth, the action is due to centrifugal force, the same force that gives the earth its spheroid shape. The general pathway of a river is called its course. The groove through which it flows is its channel or bed. The area drained by a river is its basin. The volume of water carried to the sea depends, generally speaking, on the amount of water falling in its basin; but this is not always the case. The Nile, the Ganges, the Rio Grande, and other rivers that might be mentioned, flowing through arid districts, lose a considerable part of their water by evaporation.

In physical geography, a river that has reduced its basin to a comparative level is called an old river, regardless of its age. A river that still flows through gorges is called a new river, although geologically speaking, it may be of ancient origin. When a river is formed by the union of several large streams, the name of the largest and longest is written usually below the point of junction. The Missouri-Mississippi is a marked exception to this rule. The Missouri is far longer than the Mississippi above the point of junction. The St. Lawrence forms another marked exception. The St. Louis River, the Sault Ste. Marie, the Detroit, and the Niagara are all parts of the same waterway.

It is customary in Great Britain to prefix the word river to the name. Thus they say the River Mersey and the River Clyde; but in America the position is reversed. We speak of the St. Lawrence River, the Saskatchewan River, the Arkansas River, the Hudson River, etc.

Of well known rivers, the Amazon is the largest. It contains the most water. The Missouri-Mississippi is the longest; the Thames is the most frequented; the Rhone is the most rapid; the Rhine is the most celebrated; the Volga is the largest inland stream; the Colorado has the most wonderful canon; the Columbia is the most noted for fisheries; the Danube has witnessed the greatest struggles for its possession. In proportion to its volume, the St. Lawrence has the smallest tributaries. The Yukon is the most surprising, the least known, of great rivers.

IMPORTANT RIVERS.

NORTH AMERICA.

SOUTH AMERICA.

EUROPE.

ASIA.

AFRICA.

AUSTRALIA.

Murray . . . . .1,120 270,000

There's no music like a little river's. It plays the same tune (and that's the favorite) over and over again, and yet does not weary of it like men fiddlers. It takes the mind out of doors; and though we should be grateful for good houses, there is, after all, no house like God's out-of-doors.

And lastly, sir, it quiets a man down like saying his prayers.--Robert Louis Stevenson.

A river is the most human and companionable of all inanimate things. It has a life, a character, a voice of its own, and is as full of good fellowship as a sugar-maple is of sap. It can talk in various tones, loud or low, and of many subjects, grave and gay. . . . For real company and friendship, there is nothing outside of the animal kingdom that is comparable to a river.--Henry Van Dyke.