U.S. Law Firm

Law Firm in Usa

In order to help you query law firm information from U.S.,we collect all U.S. large listed company information for your reference. Hope the information are helpful to you!

The United States Rivers and Lakes

The United States is comparatively rich in water resources. As befits a nation of continental proportions, the United States has an extraordinary network of rivers and lakes, including some of the largest and most useful in the world. 

In the humid East they provide an enormous mileage of cheap inland transportation; westward, most rivers and streams are unnavigable but are heavily used for irrigation and power generation. Both East and West, however, traditionally have used lakes and streams as public sewers, and despite efforts to clean them up,most large waterways are laden with vast,poisonous volumes of industrial, agricultural, and human wastes.

Chief among U.S. rivers is the Mississippi, which, with its great tributaries, the Ohio and the Missouri, drains most of the mid-continent. The Mississippi is navigable to Minneapolis nearly 1,200 miles by air from the Gulf of Mexico; and along with the Great Lakes 一 St. Lawrence system it forms the world’s greatest network of inland waterways. The Mississippi’s eastern branches, chiefly the Ohio and the Tennessee, are also navigable for great distances. From the west, however, many of its numerous Great Plains tributaries arc too seasonal and choked with sandbars to be used for shipping. The Missouri, for example, though longer than the Mississippi itself, was essentially without navigation until the mid-20th century, when a combination of dams, locks, and dredging opened the river to barge traffic.

The Mississippi River is the most important and longest river in the country. It flows about 6,400 kilometers from Its northwestern source in the Rockies to the Gulf of Mexico. It drains all the central area of the USA and has a wide delta, and many tributaries. Before America completed her railway system, the Mississippi had been the most important artery of transportation in the country. On the river there is a famous town of Hannibal where the noted American writer Mark Twain was raised. His most popular and important writings are concerned with this area. His book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn tells the story of how the boy Huckleberry Finn and his black friend Jim, a runaway slave, sailed down the Mississippi on a raft.

The Missouri River, 3,725 kilometers long, is the main tributary of the Mississippi. It rises in southwest Montana and joins the Mississippi at St. Louis. Over its course it typically is a broad, silt-laden river, giving rise to its nickname “Big Muddy”. The vast drainage basin of the Missouri and its tributaries covcrs an area of about 1,372,000 square kilometers. Many tiams were built on the river for flood control, hydroelectric power, and irrigation.

The Ohio River, 1, 500 kilometers long,is the major eastern tributary of the Mississippi. It runs from the rainy east and joins the Mississippi at Cario, Illinois. It reaches the Great Lakes area, the most important region in America. Its drainage basin, including all tributaries, is about 327, 000 square kilometers.

The Great Lakes — St. Lawrence system, the other half of the mid-continent inland waterway, is connected to the Mississippi - Ohio via Chicago by canals and the Illinois River. The five Great Lakes (four of which are shared with Canada) constitute by far the largest freshwater lake group in the world and carry a larger tonnage of shipping than any other. The three main barriers to navigation 一 the St. Marys Rapids, at Sault Sainte Marie; Niagara Falls; and the rapids of the St. Lawrence — are all bypassed by locks, whose 27-foot draft lets ocean vessels penetrate 1,300 miles into the continent, as far as Duluth, Minnesota, and Chicago.

The third group of Eastern rivers drains the coastal strip along the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Except for the Rio Grande, which rises west of the Rockies and flows about 1, 900 circuitous miles to the Gulf, few of these coastal rivers measure more than 300 miles, and most flow in an almost straight line to the sea. Except in ^aciated New England and in arid southwestern Texas, most of the larger coastal streams are navigable for some distance.

This article original created by www.lawyers-in-usa.com , reproduced please indicate the source url http://www.lawyers-in-usa.com/American-Culture/USA_Rivers_and_Lakes.shtml