of many competent river men, there is still room for much improvement,
not only in the river, but in the method of arrangements for designing
and carrying out the improvements.

The Missouri River, the great tributary to the Mississippi, has often
been described as one of the most treacherous and aggressive rivers in
the universe. It seems to be actuated by a spirit of unrest and a desire
for change, so much so that the center of the river bed frequently moves
to the right or left so rapidly as to wipe out of existence prosperous
farms and homes. Sometimes this erratic procedure threatens the very
existence of cities and bridges, and tens of thousands of dollars have
been spent from time to time in day and night work to check the
aggression of the stream and to compel it to confine itself to its
proper limits.

The Mississippi proper brings down from the lakes to its junction with
the Missouri River clear water, in which the reflection is so vivid,
that the verdure on the banks gives it quite a green appearance. The
Missouri, on the other hand, is muddy and turbulent, bringing with it
even at low water a large quantity of sand and sediment. At high water
it brings with it trees and anything else that happens to come within
its reach, but at all periods of the year its water is more or less
muddy. At the junction of the two rivers the difference in color of the
water is very apparent, and, strange to say, there is not a complete
intermingling until several miles have been covered by the current.
Under ordinary conditions, the western portion of the current is very
much darker in shade than the eastern, even twenty miles from what is
generally spoken of as the mouth of the Missouri.

The Muddy Missouri rises in the Rocky Mountains. It is really formed by