Harry.
Answer.—This notion that the Mississippi, in order to accommodate itself to theories as to the shape of the earth, is performing the remarkable feat of running up hill, is sufficiently prevalent to lead to the iteration and reiteration of the above question as often as once a week at least. Of course we cannot reiterate answers so frequently, and hence generally pass the question unnoticed, as correspondents have passed our by-gone replies. A lengthy answer will be found in Our Curiosity Shop of last year, page 95. Here and now we will merely say that the United States Hydrographical Survey flatly contradicts the notion that Lake Itasca is lower than the Gulf of Mexico. It gives the levels at numerous points between that lake and the mouth of the Mississippi, and, surprising as it may seem, considering that the equator has “got the bulge” on all the rest of the world, this survey demonstrates that this old-fashioned river, following the custom of other rivers, with unyielding perversity, is running down hill; in some places at the rate of twenty-five feet and more per mile, and in others at the rate of only several inches. Perhaps this all comes of its never having been “to high school,” or a gymnasium. In fact its education has been totally neglected, except down South, where it has been trained into a bad habit of climbing levees. Whatever the shape of the earth—whether its equatorial diameter is twenty-six miles greater than its axial diameter, or more or less; and whether the waters of the ocean are or are not drawn toward the equator by the centrifugal force of the earth’s diurnal motion, until they stand several miles higher there than they would if the globe had no diurnal motion—one fact is established beyond all equivocation, and that is, that tide level at the mouth of the Mississippi is about 1,575 feet lower than Lake Itasca; which entirely relieves this grand old son of Neptune of any necessity for waging war with the laws of nature and fighting his way up hill to revisit the halls of his father, the “Trident-bearer,” in the briny chambers of the sea. Probably if the earth’s motion on its axis were to cease there would be a reflux of waters from the equatorial region into the Gulf of Mexico, up the Mississippi Valley, across into the Red River of the North and the Mackenzie, submerging the greater part of North America. Let us hope that the earth will continue to spin on its axis at about the same rate as now, at least until we have sold out all our farms and corner lots and moved to equatorial America, where land will then be considerably higher than it is at present in more senses than one.
FIRST CHAPLAINS OF CONGRESS.
Leighton, Iowa.
When was the first prayer offered in the Congress of the United States and by whom? Is there any official record of the matter? If so, where can it be found?
H. Clew.
Answer.—The first chaplain of the Senate of the United States was the Rt. Rev. Samuel Provoost, of the Episcopal Church, Bishop of New York. The first chaplain of the House of Representatives was the Rev. Wm. Lynn, D. D., of the Presbyterian Church. Both of these officiated in the first Congress organized under the present Constitution in the spring of 1789. The Congressional proceedings of that time are preserved in the “American State Papers,” selected and edited under authority of Congress.
THE HARMONICA.