Explorers of the Mississippi, by Timothy Severin and Views on the Mississippi: The Photographs of Henry Peter Bosse (University of Minnesota Press, £13 and £33 respectively)

DIVIDING the landmass of North America into almost equal parts, the great waters of the Mississippi were for long neglected by European explorers.

The reasons for this were complex, but the competing interests of the various superpowers undoubtedly played a major part. Coming under the various influences of the French, Spanish, British and, latterly, the Americans, the territorial volatility of this fabled waterway ensured that exploration was often at best sporadic.

Hernando de Soto was the first major arrival, and it was inevitable that others would follow... men such as Joliet, Marquette, La Salle and Henry de Tonti.

It is difficult not to be filled with awe and admiration when reading about these visionaries, who not only needed a keen sense of survival, but also a steady heart and firm finger on the trigger if need be.

For the dangers - not least the institutionalised, appalling cruelty of the Iroquois - were very real. Yet this watery frontier was destined to be pushed ever northwards - and this is where Timothy Severin's enthralling book vacates the stage to make way for Mark Neuzil's sterling collection of 19th Century pictures.

Henry Peter Bosse was a mapmaker and photographer for the US Army. Here, in this remarkable book, are almost 100 of his most stunning images of the upper Mississippi, taken at a time of unprecedented environmental and social change.

This is not the river of Mark Twain,

the untamed beast issuing its challenge to the Victorian mindset. Instead of bayous and levees, here we observe Big Muddy in her corsets and stays - dams and bridges proliferate, craven images of industrialisation harnessing this ultimate expression of nature's power.

Both these books - vastly differing in their concepts but with a common theme - will not only interest students of Americana, but also those who never sober up from the intoxication of rivers.

More information about the University of Minnesota Press can be found on www.upress.umn.edu

John Phillpott