Cape Fear River

“ Cape Fear is a point which runs with dreadful shoals far into the sea, from the mouth of Clarendon river in North Carolina. Sullivan's Island and the Coffin land are the marks of the entry into Charlestown harbor. Hilton head, upon French's island, shows the entry into Port Royal; and the point of Tybee island makes the entry of the Savannah river. Upon that point the Trustees for Georgia have erected a noble signal or light-house, ninety feet high, and twenty-five feet wide. ”

“ It is wholly grim and stern; no touch of beauty relieves the austere majesty of that presence. At the foot of Cape Eternity the water is of unknown depth, and it spreads, a black expanse, in the rounding hollow of shores of unimaginable wildness and desolation, and issues again in its river's course around the base of Cape Trinity. This is yet loftier than the sister cliff, but it slopes gently backward from the stream, and from foot to crest it is heavily clothed with a forest of pines. ”

“ Tides and winds build and unbuild ridges and bowls of sand dunes, which in turn march across the land, threatening to bury marshes, forests, ponds, roads, and, in the past, whole villages and harbors. Major storms, like that of the Great Blizzard of February 6-7, 1978, change the very outlines of Cape Cod, cutting barrier beaches in two, creating new islands, flattening entire dune systems, creating new inlets, and plugging up old ones. The Cape is a river of sand into which we can never step twice. ”

“ We had already come to Pamet River, which empties into the Bay. This was the limit of the Pilgrims’ journey up the Cape from Provincetown, when seeking a place for settlement. It rises in a hollow within a few rods of the Atlantic, and one who lives near its source told us that in high tides the sea leaked through, yet the wind and waves preserve intact the barrier between them, and thus the whole river is steadily driven westward butt-end foremost,—fountain-head, channel, and light-house at the mouth, all together. ”

“ The Carruths, shanty-boaters, working out in the refugee camps, saw other shanty-boaters moored in the back-water of the overflow. After passing the time of day they begged them to send word to the Cape if any news were heard of Sibley.
Motor-boats, driven by river navigators of all kinds, brought in victims of the flood who were found marooned on mounds, on cabin roofs, and even in the trees, all waiting for some one to come and find them. ”

“ The ends of the houses had thus as many muzzles as a revolver; and if the inhabitants have the same habit of staring out of the windows that some of our neighbors have, a traveller must stand a small chance with them.
Generally, the old-fashioned and unpainted houses on the Cape looked more comfortable, as well as picturesque, than the modern and more pretending ones, which were less in harmony with the scenery, and less firmly planted.
These houses were on the shores of a chain of ponds, seven in number, the source of a small stream called Herring River, which empties into the Bay. ”

“ Every hour was crowded in Cape Girardeau, which was almost wholly undamaged by the flood. Its people turned out to help those who had suffered in the bottoms, and scores of other towns were helpful in the same way. The most active of the workers, coming in sight of the river, would stop and gaze at the passing volumes of water and the acres and acres of black drift, going irresistibly down the valley. ”

“ There are now 1,538 miles of levees on both sides of the Mississippi from Cape Girardeau to the passes. These levees, of course, are still inadequate to the security of the planters against these inundations. Carrying 406 million tons of mud a year, the river becomes a dangerous stream subject to change, abandoning its old bed to cut for itself a new channel, transferring property from one State to another, isolating cities and leaving once useful levees marooned in the landscape like old Indian mounds or overgrown intrenchments. ”

“ However, Providence came to our succor: the flood succeeded to the ebb, and the wind rising out of the offing, we weighed both anchors, in spite of the obscurity of the night, and succeeded in gaining a little bay or cove, formed at the entrance of the river by Cape Disappointment, and called Baker's Bay, where we found a good anchorage. It was about midnight, and all retired to take a little rest: the crew, above all, had great need of it. ”

“ Meanwhile the bulk of the Provincetown Hook continues to expand outward into the sea. The dangerous Peaked Hill Bars represent, in current oceanographic theory, the next ridge of Province Lands dunes in the making, rising gradually from the sea. But regardless of such gains, or the pains taken by humans to stem the loss of land from the sea, the Cape is inevitably losing more than it is replacing. Oceanographers estimate that for every five acres of shoreline lost to erosion, only two are replaced with new land in the form of barrier beaches or sand hooks. ”

“ It was alleged that in flood seasons, when the water in the Mississippi river rose above its natural low-water banks, such water would flow out and over the vast basins in which the alluvial valley between Cape Girardeau and the Gulf formed itself, and would then, either by percolation gradually flow back into the river, or be carried over and through the basins by the streams flowing through them into the Gulf of Mexico, where such streams emptied. ”

“ The coast from Cape Fear southward eighty miles, to Georgetown, South Carolina, has several small inlets through the beach, but there are no interior waters parallel with the coast in all that distance, which can be of any service to the canoeist for a coast route. It therefore became necessary for me to follow the next watercourse that could be utilized for reaching Winyah Bay, which is the first entrance to the system of continuous watercourses south of Cape Fear. ”

“ The vast amount of water power which the Falls will afford can be rendered available with profit only on the North side. Cape Disappointment, which can be made almost as impregnable as the Rock of Gibraltar, and which entirely commands the entrance of the River, frowning down on the channel which washes its base, is also on the North side. ”

“ I have doubled the Cape twice, which is often enough for any man; the third time may not be so lucky."
"Is it so dangerous, then?" said Philip.
"As dangerous as tides and currents, rocks and sand-banks, hard gales and heavy seas, can make it,—no more! Even when you anchor in the bay, on this side of the Cape, you ride in fear and trembling, for you may be blown away from your anchor to sea, or be driven on shore among the savages, before the men can well put on their clothing. ”

“ Alongside is Folly Point, guarding Folly Cove, at the northeastern extremity of the Cape, and to the westward are the villages of Bay View and Annisquam, with more quarries, and having, not far away, flowing out to Ipswich Bay through a lovely valley in the very heart of the Cape, the attractive little Squam River. The people of Cape Ann outside of Gloucester are almost all quarrymen, their product, largely paving-blocks, being shipped to all the seaboard cities. So extensive is this trade that it is difficult to decide which now brings the district most profit, the granite or the fish. ”

“ Existing examples of compound, composite rivers are seen in the Catawba, the Yadkin-Pedee, the Cape Fear and the Neuse rivers of North Carolina, which all rise on the inland crystalline area, and traverse the coastal quaternary plain before reaching the sea. But unlike these, there must have been, when the old submerged land rose with the Cretaceous cover on its back, numerous small streams whose drainage area lay entirely within the Cretaceous plain. These were simple streams, flowing over a structure of one kind and one age. ”

“ On the sixth day (Sunday) we went round Cape Naturaliste, keeping the sea-shore the whole of the sixth day. We met a single native, who led us to a spring in a swamp, close to the shore, the water very bad and brackish. This native was very troublesome, trying to push us off the rocks, and steal from us. On the first part of this day we could find no water among the rocks. From Cape Naturaliste to Port Leschenault we kept along the shore. From the Conical Hills near Augusta to Cape Naturaliste we kept at from three to four miles from the shore, on a ridge of low hills. ”

“ The coast line has a length of 400 miles and consists of a range of low islands and sand bars, locally known as “banks,” separated from the mainland by shallow sounds. The largest of the latter are Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds. From the “banks” in many places project promontories, dangerous because of their shoals. Cape Hatteras, Cape Lookout, and Cape Fear being the chief ones. The principal rivers are the Cape Fear, flowing 200 miles through the center of the State; Roanoke, and Chowan, flowing into the State from Virginia, and the Neuse, and Tar, emptying into Pamlico Sound. ”

“ It is call'd Hau-River, from the Sissipahau Indians, who dwell upon this Stream, which is one of the main Branches of Cape-Fair, there being rich Land enough to contain some Thousands of Families; for which Reason, I hope, in a short time, it will be planted. This River is much such another as Sapona; both seeming to run a vast way up the Country. Here is plenty of good Timber, and especially, of a Scaly-bark'd Oak; And as there is Stone enough in both Rivers, and the Land is extraordinary Rich, no Man that will be content within the Bounds of Reason, can have any grounds to dislike it. ”

“ In 1815 a September gale that equalled Bradford’s Great Storm swept Buzzard’s Bay, piled the tides higher than had ever been known, and all but excavated a Cape Cod Canal. Trees were uprooted, salt-works destroyed, and vessels driven high on land. In 1831, to vary the story, unprecedented snows were fatal to deer in the Sandwich woods where they fell easy prey to hunters on snowshoes who brought in no less than two hundred, forty of them trapped alive.
All up and down the Cape, in every village and town, as the years passed, the sea took its toll of men. ”

“ One early Saturday in November I reached the Nauset Coast Guard Beach just as the peak of the high tide reached the shore and the unleashed fury of an angry Atlantic beat against the land to create one of the Cape’s most terrifying and awesome sights. The wind had shifted to the southwest and the sun was trying to break through the overcast but the seas piled higher and higher, as if through their own momentum. The whole surface of the sea was a menacing mass of tortured white breakers which threw their spume in smokey clouds a hundred feet into the air. ”

“ Because of this spreading habit of the stream, the few villages along the way are planted on the higher land at the base of the bluffs, or on an occasional sandy pocket-plateau 245 which the river, as in ages past it has worn its bed to lower levels, has left high and dry above present overflows. Some of these towns, in their fear of floods, are situated two or three miles back from the water highway; others, where the channel chances to closely hug a line of bluffs, are directly abutting the river, which is crossed at such points by either a ferry or a toll-bridge. ”

“ Yet in one way the Brandywine Hills are closely connected with those sands, for from these very hills have been quarried the hard rocks for the great breakwater at the Cape, behind which the fleets of merchant vessels take refuge in storms.
The great sand dunes behind the lighthouse at the cape have their equal nowhere else on the coast. Blown by the ocean winds, the dunes work inland, overwhelming a pine forest to the tree tops and filling swamps in their course. The beach is strewn with every type of wreckage of man's vain attempts to conquer the sea. ”

“ Some of these ponds became connected to the sea and turned into salt ponds, such as the one near the Seashore visitor center in Eastham. Over the years peat has filled in many of the ponds.
The Restless Shore (28,29) Within a person’s lifetime, the Cape’s shape changes dramatically. The waters of the ocean and bay and the wind constantly erode material here and deposit it there. Major storms can create islands, sandbars, and dunes and revamp other land forms. ”

“ Among the most singular features of the Cape is the supply of water, which is found only in the valley of Aden, close under the cliffs, and at the openings of the fissures from the steppes above. Here, piercing to a great depth through the solid rock, are upwards of one hundred wells; many dilapidated and choked up, but others yielding an abundant and unfailing supply. Whence or in what manner they are fed it is extremely difficult to conjecture. All near the beach are bad, and more or less brackish; some are sensibly affected by the tides, and very saline ”

“ Perhaps you can imagine the chaos which it piles up: there are pressure ridges compared to which the waves of the sea are like a ploughed field. These are worst at Cape Crozier itself, but they extend all along the southern slopes of Mount Terror, running parallel with the land, and the disturbance which Cape Crozier makes is apparent at Corner Camp some forty miles back on the Barrier in the crevasses we used to find and the occasional ridges we had to cross. ”

“ For there was a time before the arrival of the Syrians, the Armenians, and the automobile, when New England was in a meditative mood. But Cape Cod is really a ridge of sand with a backbone of soil, rashly thrust into the Atlantic, and as fluent and volatile, so to speak, as one of those far Western rivers that are shifting currents sublimely indifferent to private ownership. The Cape does not lack stability, but it shifts its lines with easy disregard of charts and boundaries, and remains stable only at its center; it is always fraying at the edges. ”