How Have Waterways Guided Explorers Throughout History?

Explorers have long used rivers as guides. Travelling the Amazon and its 200 tributaries, explorers penetrated the Amazon basin. And until now these waters provide the chief means of transportation in the area.
The Mississippi River made possible the exploration of vast stretches of America, since it forms the trunk of a 14,000-mile inland waterway. The Saint Lawrence waterway carried explorers and settlers into the heartland of the North American continent.
And man has long used waters to transport himself and his goods from one part of the earth to the other, be it by raft, canoe or ocean liner.
An early commercial highway in the history of man was the Euphrates River, navigable by small boats for some 1,200 miles. Modern-day routes of commerce follow such courses as the Mississippi. Made famous by song, this 'Old man river just keeps rollin' along' its 2,470-mile course from northern Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico.

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