From: mdhangton@gmail.com   
      
   Not everything I write is intelligent.   
      
   I don't believe that any rivers that emptied into the Mississippi from the   
   west were navigable very far inland.  I think the Great Log Raft started about   
   80 miles up the Red River.  The Arkansas was certainly not navigable as far as   
   it is today, which is    
   about 50 miles or so over the Oklahoma border (I'd have to look at a map to   
   remember what city).  That situation is entirely the result of dredging.  I   
   don't think you'd get much past Port Arkansas with a commercial ship before   
   1900.  Maybe you could go    
   about a third of the way into Arkansas with a very shallow draft barge, or   
   float timber rafts downstream.   
      
   I'm not sure if you could get very far up the Yazoo or Black Rivers in   
   Mississippi.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)