Mark doubts his ability to learn everything necessary to become a pilot but Mr. Bixby insists he will either learn him or kill him.

The riverboats often had a small population of unemployed pilots, there for the free ride and to stay informed of the river's condition. In this chapter they get to witness an impressive bit of piloting by Mark's pilot, Mr. Bixby.

Early commerce on the Mississippi River and a chapter originally written for Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a profile on the raftsmen. This chapter also contains an interesting bit of dialog regarding geophagy.

The listener may discern why Mark Twain may have had to depart the San Francisco area when he did, given his expressed attitude towards the police.

This chapter contains the famous story of the old ram.

Hints at the claustrophobia of being in such mines at such depths, particulalry the section on visiting the collapsed sections of the mine.

The literary journal arrives in Virginia with bad writing and even worse postry.

I did this story on a whim and to counter-balance The Man the Corrupted Hadleyburg. It is rather corny but fun and I suspect it is a bit of day dreaming on the part of Mark who was rather in the financial doldrums at the time of writing this.

Some newspaper reports on carnage and general mayhem in and about Virginia City.

Here's a link to a page regarding Captain Ned Wakeman. http://twainproject.blogspot.com/2009/09/making-connections-captain-ned…