Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Indian tribes by a steamboat passenger, killed 10,000 to 20,000 Indians, including over
90% of the Mandan Nation, proprietors of one of the Missouri River's main trading posts.
9.SeveralhundredthousandcountryboatsplytheriversofBangladesh,movingpas-
sengersandcargo.Theseboatsplayavitalroleinthelivesofruralpeopleandinthe
rural economy
The Danube: artery of Europe
Although not its longest, many would offer the Danube as Europe's principal river, as it was
in the mid-17th century when Pope Innocent X approved construction of the Four Rivers
Fountain in Piazza Navona in Rome. Crowned by an Egyptian obelisk, Gian Lorenzo Bern-
ini's most dramatic and spectacular work consists of four marble figures symbolizing the
major world rivers known at the time (no doubt in part a reference to the four rivers of
Eden). The Nile represented Africa, the Ganges Asia, the Rio de la Plata symbolized the
Americas, and the Danube represented Europe. Linking more countries than any other river
in the world, the Danube both defines and integrates the continent.
Human occupation of the Danube Valley has been traced back at least 25,000 years, when
men gathered to hunt mammoth at Dolni Vestonice, in the Czech Republic of today. A nat-
ural corridor for migration linking east and west, the river was used by farmers from the
