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Exercises

Notes on Virginia: the Mississippi

Author: Thomas Jefferson Year: 1785 Length: 424 characters Difficulty: easy Public domain

Old spellings sit next to figures for depth and width, so accuracy matters as much as speed in this one.

The Missisipi, below the mouth of the Missouri, is always muddy, and abounding with sand bars, which frequently change their places. However, it carries 15 feet water to the mouth of the Ohio, to which place it is from one and a half to two miles wide, and thence to Kaskaskia, from one mile to a mile and a quarter wide. Its current is so rapid, that it never can be stemmed by the force of the wind alone, acting on sails.

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A sandy track winds past oak trees, a pool and a thatched cottage under piled clouds, Landscape in Suffolk, Thomas Gainsborough, 1747.
What you just typedNotes on Virginia: the MississippiThomas Jefferson, 1785
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About this text

Jefferson spells the river Missisipi, and the 1853 reprint keeps his spelling. He never saw it himself, so the description rests on reports from travellers 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.

About this text

Jefferson spells the river Missisipi, and the 1853 reprint keeps his spelling. He never saw it himself, so the description rests on reports from travellers 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.

What it trains

Old spellings sit next to figures for depth and width, so accuracy matters as much as speed in this one.

Public domain

Copyright has expired or never applied, so anyone can copy the text and use it further.

Source: domena publiczna, Wikisource

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