Notes on Virginia: the Mississippi

Jefferson spells the river Missisipi, and the 1853 reprint keeps his spelling. He never saw it himself, so the description rests on reports from travelers and traders. The passage gives depths in feet, widths in miles, and travel times in weeks, a mixture that makes it useful practice. About twenty years later he sent Lewis and Clark up the Missouri, the river named in the first line here.

Where this text comes fromJefferson never saw the river he is describing. Everything here is compiled from travelers, traders and army reports, which is why the account moves between precise depths and vague travel times without noticing the difference. The 1853 reprint linked below keeps his spelling of the name, Missisipi, with a single s and a single p where modern English doubles both. About twenty years after writing this he sent Lewis and Clark to find out what was actually there.

What you might not noticeThe passage records that the river is always muddy below the mouth of the Missouri and abounding with sand bars that frequently change their places, an observation about a moving riverbed rather than a fixed channel. Source

What it trainsTen commas in 424 characters, arranged so that three sentences average twenty-seven words each, and the clauses are stacked rather than nested. That means long stretches with no full stop and no obvious place to check yourself. The real trap is a single word: Missisipi, spelled by Jefferson with one s where you have typed two your whole life. Every reflex you have will correct it, and the test will count the correction as an error. Only two digits appear, so the number row barely comes into it.

Read the full text at the publisher: Wikisource