MISSISSIPPI RIVER
MISSISSIPPI RIVER
“Interesting In Spite of Its
Snarling Asperity
Ashe, Thomas. Travels in America, performed in 1806, for the purpose of exploring the rivers Alleghany, Monongahela, Ohio, and Mississippi, and ascertaining the produce and condition of their banks and vicinity. Newburyport [MA]: Wm. Sawyer & Co. (pr. by E.M. Blunt), 1808. 12mo (18.1 cm, 7.1"). 366 pp. 
Click any image where the hand appears on Provenance: Front free endpaper with inked inscription reading “Henry Pratt’s Book, Bought in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eleven, third month twelfth day”; front pastedown with inked inscription reading “Matilda Miller’s Book 1898.”
• Shaw & Shoemaker 14380; Sabin 2180; Howes A352. Contemporary sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; leather much worn and abraded, spine with inked call number. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate (affixed above and not obscuring inscription), front free endpaper and fly-leaf with inscriptions as above, title-page unobtrusively pressure-stamped, first text page with inked annotation in inner margin and stamped numeral in lower margin. Pages age-toned and spotted. Upper outer corner of one leaf torn away, with loss of a few words; four leaves torn, touching a number of lines of text but not generally affecting sense. Occasional small pencilled check marks.
He Beat
Mark Twain to the Use of Pike County Vernacular
Hay, John. The Pike County ballads. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1912. 8vo (22.3 cm, 8.75"). 45, [3] pp.; illus.
• BAL 7841. Publisher's tan cloth, front cover with affixed color-printed paper illustration; binding somewhat darkened (especially spine), corners and spine extremities rubbed, a few small spots of discoloration to front and back covers. Front pastedown with pencilled gift inscription, front free endpaper with bookseller's small ticket. Pages clean. A very nice book. (20839)
These
Businessmen ONLY
Want What They're 
“Entitled”
To
Mississippi River Convention. St. Paul, Minnesota, 1877. A memorial to Congress to secure an adequate appropriation for a prompt and thorough improvement of the Mississippi River with an appendix by Sylvester Waterhouse. St. Louis: John J. Daly & Co., 1877. 8vo. [1] ff., 39 pp.
• The River Improvement Convention of 1877, made up of "practical business men" of the
Mississippi Valley, resolved to petition Congress to "provide adequate means for the deepening of
the channel of the Mississippi" and for "the removal of every obstruction to navigation from St.
Paul to Balize." This pamphlet consists of their "memorial" and its supplementary appendix by
Sylvester Waterhouse, which together set forth specific demands along with statistics and economic analysis supporting them. River shipment of grain, lumber, meat, and other commodities is
discussed in detail, often offering comparisons with rail shipment; Valley industry, present and
potential immigration, and foreign trade (with citation of foreign "examples" of such subsidies as
are sought) are all canvassed. The petitioners believe that the Valley is "entitled" to "better
facilities for the transaction of its enormous business," and they want appropriation to be
"speedy."Although a scholar in Greek and Latin at Washington University, Waterhouse according to the DAB had "interests [that] carried him far from the classical subjects he enthusiastically expounded in the classroom." He is noted as a "firm believer in the future of the Middle West [and] an ardent advocate of improving the Mississippi River."
• On Waterhouse, see: Dictionary of American Biography, XIX, 533. Original flexible fabrikoid, splitting along spine.
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