American River

“ As it is the flow from these lakes forms Five Lakes Creek, which empties into the Rubicon and thence into the South Fork of the American.
Five Lakes afford excellent fishing and a log-cabin, three boats and fishing tackle are kept here throughout the season for the pleasure of guests. Those who disdain the ordinary accommodations of a hotel can here camp out, rough it, and make it their headquarters while climbing the adjoining peaks or exploring the ravines and canyons at the head of the American River. ”

“ Here our thought is of the river itself, the river of "a hundred thousand affluents," as one has characterized it; the river which for a little time bore through the valley of Louisiana and of the Illinois the name of the great French minister "Colbert."
To the Spanish the river was a hazard, a difficulty to be gotten over. To the Indian it was the place of fish and defense. To the Anglo-American empire of wheels, that later came over the mountains, it was a barrier athwart the course, to be ferried or forded or bridged, but not to be followed. ”

“ Not the least interesting among the picturesque features of the country are the remarkable channels cut by some of the rivers through ranges of hills or rocky ridges. Such are the passage of the Hudson through the Highlands of New York; the Delaware Water Gap; the passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge at Harper's Ferry; the “gates of the Rocky mountains” on the upper course of the Missouri in Montana; the deep cañons of the Colorado of the West; and the “cascades” where the Columbia river breaks through the Cascade range on the boundary between Washington territory and Oregon. ”

“ The shore line of the great lakes, according to estimates made in the coast survey office, measures 3,450 m., viz.: Superior, 955; Michigan, 1,320; Huron, 510; St. Clair, 65; Erie, 370 ; Ontario, 230.—The rivers of the United States may be comprised in four distinct classes: 1. The Mississippi and its affluents, which drain the region between the Alleghanies and the Rocky mountains. The chief of these affluents are: on the east, the Wisconsin, Rock, Illinois, Ohio, Yazoo, and Big Black; on the west, the Minnesota, Des Moines, Missouri, St. Francis, Arkansas, and Red river. ”

“ The scene becomes peculiarly desolate and mournful, often giving one the impression of being far removed from civilization, threading the course of some hitherto unexplored stream. Penetrate the deep fringe of forest and morass on foot, however, and smiling prairies are found beyond, stretching to the horizon and cut up into prosperous farms. The river is here from a half to three-quarters of a mile broad, but the shallows and snags are as numerous as ever and navigation is continually attended with some danger of being either grounded or capsized. ”

“ Two or three hundred yards has been the limit of the view ahead, as the stream swerves gracefully from the slightest rise of land, and flows now east, now north, now east, now south again. So long a stretch of navigable water is not common on the Delectable River, and we make the most of it, moving leisurely, and prisoning the everchanging picture with the imperfect camera of the eyes. ”

“ Our great river systems should be developed as National water highways, the Mississippi, with its tributaries, standing first in importance, and the Columbia second, although there are many others of importance on the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Gulf slopes. ”

“ The river itself had many of the elements of nobility and beauty as, taking its rise in the snowy heights of the New England ranges, it clove its way eastward, finally debouching into the blue waters of the Pacific. The river-flats formed magnificent stretches of arable lands; too rich, indeed, for such cereals as wheat and oats, for their rank growth rendered them liable to the fatal rust. ”

“ God is daily pumping up from the ocean and other bodies of water rivers as vast as the combined waters of the Mississippi, Missouri, Susquehanna, the Hudson, and every creek and streamlet and river that flows, not only on this continent, but in all the world. ”

“ The giant steamer, Belle Key, moved slowly along, thundering down the clear blue river, the lofty shores of which, with their ever-changing scenes glided past, cheerful and lovely. The river became broader, the hills sank lower, the villas disappeared, farm-houses and log-houses recurred at more and more distant intervals, the banks became more wooded and desolate. We approached the Mississippi.
What is going on? Why do the people rush out from the fields? A chase upon the water?
A stag with branching antlers swims across the river from the Kentucky to the Ohio shore. ”

“ Not seeing any signs of game, however, they steered out so as to clear the various little capes or woody points of land inclosing the numerous coves scattered along the indented shore, and struck a line for the great inlet at the head of the lake, which they now soon reached, and commenced rowing against the at first gentle and then rapid current, which here pours down from, the upper lakes, through the rocky and picturesque defiles, in the form of a magnificent river, rivalling in its size the midway portions of the Connecticut or Hudson. ”

“ Its limits take in three of the largest rivers of North America; the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Red River of the North. Though remote from the sea board, ships can go out from its harbors to the ocean in two if not three different channels. Its delightful scenery of lakes and water-falls, of prairie and woodland, are not more alluring to the tourist, than are its invigorating climate and its verdant fields attractive to the husbandman. ”

“ So much of the country through which it runs, is, therefore, sterile and rough; but the immediate margin of the river uniformly presents a strip of the richest alluvial bottom-land, from a quarter of a mile to a mile and a half in width. ”

“ Every stream has its own water-shed system, and this system is the real boundary of its basin. If we trace this [148] basin to its very limits on the highlands, we may find, not a mile away, the beginnings of another river, which shall flow in just the contrary direction, as for example in the case of the Rhine and Rhone, the Volga and the Dwina. The sources of the Missouri and of the Columbia lie close together, not a quarter of an hour’s walk apart; yet the waters of one flow into the Atlantic, of the other into the Pacific, and their mouths are almost 2500 miles apart. ”

“ Here were the famous Indian portages. One from Lake Superior through Pigeon River, Sturgeon Lake, and Rainy River into the Lake of the Woods, has served to locate the boundary between two great{39} nations, and is the native highway between Hudson’s River and Hudson’s Bay. Another through Brulé River leads into the head waters of the Mississippi, and thence, by ascending the Missouri, to the rivers that empty into the Pacific Ocean. ”

“ The Indian sets the prairie afire, for the conveniency of hunting—the emigrant sets it afire, so that the fresh grass may spring up for his cattle; and so between [Pg 85] them both, they all get burnt over. And when once kindled, the fire goes where the wind happens to drive.
This State has great advantages for inland navigation by means of its rivers. On the east, it is washed by the Michigan lake and Wabash river; on the south, by the Ohio, and on the west, by the Mississippi. The most important river within the State is the Illinois. ”

“ It is usual for the American to boast of his rivers, not only for their size and usefulness, but for their beauties. A thousand streams, that in older regions would have been rendered memorable, ages since, by the poet, the painter, art in every form, and the events of a teeming history, flow within the limits of the United States still unsung, and nearly unknown. ”

“ But along the miles of levees there was activity and life. Ocean steamers were taking on cargo, and multitudes of river steamboats were discharging freights of cotton bales and other upstream products, brought from the coal mines and wheat fields and plantations of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee, of Wisconsin and Minnesota and Iowa, even from the Dakotas and Nebraska and Kansas, and from Missouri and Arkansas and Mississippi and Louisiana, for here converges the vast interior water-traffic of the continent. ”

“ When we cross the Atlantic to the United States, we can go up the Hudson, pass through the Erie Canal, cross the Great Lakes, leave Lake Michigan at Chicago, gain the Mississippi by way of the Illinois River and the connecting canal, and go down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. ”

“ You can't ride, and if you walk, how are you going to cross a swollen river, filled with pieces of ice the size of this room? Those Alaska rivers are huge bodies of water, many of them, and there are no bridges. ”

“ Rivers and Lakes.—In general, the country abounds with rivers and small streams. They rise in the interior, and flow in every direction to the lakes which surround it. The northern tributaries of the Maumee rise in Michigan, though the main stream is in Ohio, and it enters the west end of lake Erie on the "debatable land." Proceeding up the lake, Raisin and then Huron occur. Both are navigable streams, and their head waters interlock with Grand river, or Washtenong, which flows into lake Michigan. River Rouge enters Detroit river, a few miles below the city of Detroit. ”

“ I must not omit mentioning that no ship can either enter or continue in the river when the waters are high, on account of the prodigious numbers of trees, and vast quantities of dead wood, which it carries down, and which, together with the canes, leaves, mud, and sand, which the sea throws back upon the coast, are continually augmenting the land, and make it project into the Gulf of Mexico, like the bill of a bird. ”

“ So that we are obliged solely to the Indians, for all the intelligence we are able to give relative to the more northern parts. As this River is not navigable from the sea for vessels of any considerable burthen, much higher up than the Forks of the Ohio, and even that is accomplished with great difficulty, owing to the rapidity of the current, and the windings of the river, those settlements that may be made on the interior branches of it, must be indisputably secure from the attacks of any maritime power. ”

“ Persons accustomed to the navigation of the Missouri and the Mississippi also below the mouth of this river, uniformly take the precaution to load their vessels heavyest in the bow when they ascend the stream in order to avoid the danger incedent to runing foul of the concealed timber which lyes in great quantities in the beds of these rivers. ”

“ As has been stated in the preceding pages, the drainage of the lake-basin apparently flowed for ages by New York; and it is an interesting fact that the great tide of population and business which has set in from the Eastern States toward the interior has chiefly passed through the gap cut in the highlands by the old river whose course we have endeavored to trace. ”

“ The Great Lakes on the northern border of the United States are the largest bodies of fresh water on the globe. They carry an enormous commerce, nearly a hundred thousand men being employed by the fleet of lake vessels, which approximates two millions tonnage. At the head of Lake Erie the waters of Detroit River pour in, draining the upper lakes, this stream, about twenty-five miles long, flowing from Lake St. Clair and broadening from a half-mile to four miles width at its mouth. ”

“ The river itself winds considerably for so great a body of water; the forest, too, is luxuriant, and the hillsides are covered with heavy fir; numerous islands occur at intervals, wooded and exceedingly pretty. Where the river has worked its way through the Coast Mountains, the scenery, though not so abrupt, stern or impressive as that of the middle Columbia, presents many fine effects, the lofty walls of the river being surmounted by hills of considerable altitude. ”

“ John River is the chief member of that great system of lakes and rivers that has won for this province the distinction of being “the most finely watered country in the world.” It is one of the most delightful waterways known, and it is questionable whether any part of America can exhibit greater beauty than that seen in a cruise over its entrancing waters. Steamers may navigate a hundred miles from its mouth, and canoes may go up another hundred miles without other obstruction than an occasional rapid. ”

“ Even so the stream and its channel are one life, and I cannot think of the swift, brown flood of the Batiscan without its shadowing primeval forests, or the crystalline current of the Boquet without its beds of pebbles and golden sand and grassy banks embroidered with flowers.
Every country—or at least every country that is fit for habitation—has its own rivers; and every river has its own quality; and it is the part of wisdom to know and love as many as you can, seeing each in the fairest possible light, and receiving from each the best that it has to give. ”

“ From another, the river, before it empties into the lake, expands into a stretch of shallow water contained within the north or Minnesota shore, upon which is Duluth, and the south or Wisconsin shore, upon which is the city of Superior, through which shallow stretch a tortuous but navigable channel curvingly continues to flow until, by a passage through an intervening bar, the river, emptying into the bay, merges its existence with that of the lake. ”