RIVER

(Lat. rivus.) In Physical Geography, an inland current of water, formed within a certain portion of the earth's surface by the confluence of brooks, small streams, or mountain torrents, and discharging itself into the ocean, a lake, marsh, or other river. There are few subjects in physical geography which present so wide a field for speculation as rivers, whether we regard them in an historical, political, economical, or scientific point of view. They are a ociated with the earliest efforts of mankind to emerge from a state of barbarism; but they are no le ten to nations which have reached the acme of civilization. In the earliest ages they were regarded with veneration, and became the objects of a grateful adoration surpa ed only by that paid to the sun and the host of heaven. Nor is this surprising; for in countries where the labours of the husbandman and shepherd depended for a succe ful i ue on the falling of periodical rains, or the melting of the collected snows in a far-distant country, such rivers as the Nile, the Ganges, and the Indus were the visible agents of nature in bestowing on the inhabitants of their bunks all the ble ings of a rich and.oontaneous fertility; and hence their waters were hel^iacred, and they received, and to this day retain, the adoration of the countries through which tiiey flow. But it is by countries which have already made progre in civilization (to which, indeed, they largely contribute) that the advantages of rivers me best appreciated,in their adaptation to the purposes of navigation, and in their application to the useful arts. Like the veins and arteries of the human body which convey life and strength to its remotest extremities, rivers vivify, maintain, and excite the efforts of human industry; whether we regard them near their source as the humble instruments of turning a mill, in their progre as facilitating the transport of agricultural or manufacturing produce from one district to Knother, or as enriching the countries at their mouths with the varied products of distant lands. This has been so admirably expre ed by Pliny, that we cannot refrain from embodying his words in our pages. "The beginnings of a river," he says, "are insignificant, and its infancy is. frivolous: it plays among the Howers of a meadow; it waters a garden, or turns a little mill. Gathering strength, in its youth it becomes wild and impetuous. Impatient of the restraints which it still meets with in the hollows among the mountains, it is restle and fretful; quick in its turning, and unsteady in its course. Now it is a roaring cataract, tearing up and overturning whatever opposes its progre , and it shoots headlong down from a rock; then it becomes a sullen and gloomy pool, buried in the bottom of a glen. Recovering breadth by repose, it again dashes along, till, tired of uproar and mischief, it quits all that it has swept along, and leaves the opening of the valley strewed with the rejected waste. Now quitting its retirement, it comes abroad into the world, journeying with more prudence and discretion through cultivated fields, yielding to circumstances,and winding round what would trouble it to overwhelm or remove. It pa es through the populous cities, and all the busy haunts of man, tendering it: services on every side, and becomes the support and ornament of the country. Increased by numerous alliances, and advanced in its course, it becomes grave and stately in its motions, loves peace and quiet, and in majestic silence rolls on its mighty waters till it is laid to rest in the vast ai Most large rivers have their origin in very elevated mountains,or on high table lands, the height and direction of which chiefly determine their size and course?. For full information on the various points involved in this subject, we beg to refer the reader to the article "Rivers" in the Encf. Brit.; and we shall in this place confine our remarks to some of their most striking peculiarities — periodical inundations, occultations, and reappearance. The periodical inundations of rivers depend on great falls of rain in mountainous regions, or on the pelting of snows in the neighbourhood of their source. The period depends on the return of these seasons in different places. Within the tropics, the rainy season occurs usually about the time when the sun pa es the meridian towards the tropics; and continues until his return to the same place. The rise of the Orinoco commences in May, its Inundation begins In June, and the waters relurn to their channel in September; from which time they decrease until April of the succeeding year. In the Lower Mi i ippi, whose inundations begin in March, and are at their height in June, arc found those enormous rafts of driftwood (formed during the inundations), which sometimes extend for ten or twelve miles in one ma , rise and fall with the stream, yet have a luxu [s. 1078]