The men now looked about them for a new leader. Their choice fell upon Luis de Moscoso. This man was without enterprise or capacity. After enduring every calamity, the party built seven brigantines, and in seventeen days, July, 1543, passed out of the mouth of the river, and followed the coast toward the east. Out of six hundred, but few over three hundred ever returned to Cuba.
From the expedition of De Soto more than a century elapsed before any further discoveries were made. In May, 1673, Marquette, a priest, and Jolliet, a trader, and five men, made some explorations of the river.
The great work of discovery was reserved for Robert Cavelier de la Salle, a Frenchman. By his commands, Father Louis Hennepin made the discovery of the Upper Mississippi, as far as the Falls of St. Anthony. In January, 1682, La Salle himself, with twenty-three Frenchmen and eighteen Indians, set out for the exploration of the Lower Mississippi, entering the river from the Illinois, and descending it until he arrived at the Passes of the Delta. Here, to his surprise, he found the river divided into three channels. A party was sent by each, La Salle taking the western, and on April 9th the open sea was reached. The usual ceremonies attendant upon any great discovery were repeated here.
Enlivened by success, the party returned to Quebec. La Salle returned to France, and in 1684, aided by his Government, set sail with four vessels, for the discovery of the river from the sea. In this he was unsuccessful. After encountering several storms and losing one of his vessels, the expedition entered St. Louis Bay (St. Bernard) on the coast of Texas. The party disembarked, one of the vessels returned to France, and the others were lost on the coast. Thus cut off, La Salle made every effort to discover the river by land; but in every attempt he failed. At length he was assassinated by one of his followers on the 19th of March, 1687. Thus terminated the career of the explorer of the Mississippi.
The discovery of the mouth of the river from the sea, was an event of some years later, and was consummated by Iberville, in 1699. This person spent some time in navigating the river and the waters adjacent to its mouth. His brother, Bienville, succeeded him in these enterprises. A few years later, and we find settlements springing up upon the banks of the river. Since that time it has attracted a numerous population, and to-day, though desolated in parts by the contentions of armies, there is certainty in the belief that at some time these people of the great river will wield a mighty power in the political and commercial destiny of the American continent.
The Mississippi proper rises in the State of Minnesota, about 47° and some minutes north latitude, and 94° 54' longitude west, at an elevation of sixteen hundred and eighty feet above the level of the Gulf of Mexico, and distant from it two thousand eight hundred and ninety-six miles, its utmost length, upon the summit of Hauteurs de Terre, the dividing ridge between the rivulets confluent to itself and those to the Red River of the North. Its first appearance is a tiny pool, fed by waters trickling from the neighboring hills. The surplus waters of this little pool are discharged by a small brook, threading its way among a multitude of very small lakes, until it gathers sufficient water, and soon forms a larger lake. From here a second rivulet, impelled along a rapid declination, rushes with violent impetuosity for some miles, and subsides in Lake Itasca. Thence, with a more regular motion, until it reaches Lake Cass, from whence taking a mainly southeasterly course, a distance of nearly seven hundred miles, it reaches the Falls of St. Anthony. Here the river makes in a few miles a descent of sixteen feet. From this point to the Gulf, navigation is without further interruption, and the wonders of the Mississippi begin.
It is not possible to give, with complete exactness, the outlines of the immense valley drained by the Mississippi, yet, with the assistance of accurate surveys, we can make an approximation, to say the least, which will convey some idea of the physical necessity of the river to the vast area through the centre of which it takes its course.
We will say:
Within this extensive limit we find, from surveys, the following aggregate area in square miles, estimated by valleys: