Downstream effects: The cautionary tale of the Mississippi River

In an often-excerpted passage from his memoir Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain describes how his perceptions of the Mississippi River changed after he spent months piloting a steamboat up and down its muddy length. “The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book,” he says, allowing him to read the bends and eddies that meant nothing to his passengers. But the tragedy of this “valuable acquisition” was that “the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river.” 

“All the...