Mississippi, an American State on the E. bank of the Lower Mississippi, abutting on the Gulf of Mexico, between Louisiana and Alabama; has a hilly surface, traversed by numerous rivers, the Yazoo, a tributary of the Mississippi, forming a great fertile delta; the climate is free from extremes; the chief industry is agriculture; the best crops are grown in the N., and on the alluvial bottom lands; in the centre and NE. are good grazing farms; cotton, corn, oats, and fruits are the chief crops; virgin forests of hardwood cover much of the delta; valuable deposits of pipe and ochre clays and of lignite are found; cotton is manufactured, and there is trade in lumber; more than half the population is coloured, and the races are kept distinct in the State schools; the State university is at Oxford, and there are many other colleges; Jackson (6), the capital, is the chief railway centre, Meridian (10) has iron manufactures, Vicksburg (13) and Natchez (10) are the chief riverports; Mississippi was colonised by the French in 1699, ceded to Britain 1763, admitted to the Union 1817, joined the South in 1861, but was readmitted to the Union in 1869.
Population (circa 1900) given as 1,290,000.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Missal * Mississippi River