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Re: Mark Twain Quotation?



James Michener's opus "Centennial" has this remark ascribed to the desciption of
the Platte River in Colorado.

Art

____________________Reply Separator____________________
Subject:    Mark Twain Quotation?
Author: harperc@SLU.EDU
Date:       4/7/2000 12:55 PM

Dear Listers,

All the reference books have failed me, so I turn to those high-powered
memories inhabiting the archival realm!

Many people I've spoken to here in St. Louis have heard the phrase "too
thick to drink and too thin to plow," ascribed to Mark Twain and
supposedly his comment on St. Louis drinking water taken from the
Mississippi River at the turn of the twentieth century.  But I don't find
this quotation listed in any of the dictionaries, either general or of
Twain's words alone.

A St. Louis newspaper apparently used the phrase some years ago in
reference to the city's water supply, but it sounds too good to have been
invented by them!

I need to know who said this (if anybody!) and its correct context.  We
can't all be crazy!

Thanks a million!

Christine Harper
Archives Assistant, Saint Louis University
harperc@slu.edu

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