Red River: 1,520
Ohio and Alleghany: 1,480
St. Lawrence: 1,450

The figures as to the length of the Nile are estimated. The Amazon,
with its tributaries (including the Rio Negro and Madeira), drains
an area of 2,330,000 square miles; the Mississippi and Missouri,
1,726,000 square miles; the Yeneisy (or Yenisei, as it is often
written) drains about 1,000,000 square miles; the Volga, about
500,000. In this group of great rivers the St. Lawrence is the most
remarkable. It constitutes by far the largest body of fresh water in
the world. Including the lakes and streams, which it comprises in its
widest acceptation, the St. Lawrence covers about 73,000 square miles;
the aggregate, it is estimated, represents not less than 9,000 solid
miles--a mass of water which would have taken upward of forty years
to pour over Niagara at the computed rate of 1,000,000 cubic feet in
a second. As the entire basin of this water system falls short of
300,000 square miles, the surface of the land is only three times that
of the water.


HOW THE UNITED STATES GOT ITS LANDS.--The United States bought
Louisiana, the vast region between the Mississippi River, the eastern
and northern boundary of Texas (then belonging to Spain), and the
dividing ridge of the Rocky Mountains, together with what is now
Oregon, Washington Territory, and the western parts of Montana and
Idaho, from France for $11,250,000. This was in 1803. Before the
principal, interest, and claims of one sort and another assumed by
the United States were settled, the total cost of this "Louisiana
purchase," comprising, according to French construction and our