Cassiquiare River

“ Even to a country already familiar with broad and striking catastrophe, the flood was a phenomenal one. For days the sullen overflow lay in the valley of the Sacramento, enormous, silent, currentless—except where the surplus waters rolled through Carquinez Straits, San Francisco Bay, and the Golden Gate, and reappeared as the vanished Sacramento River, in an outflowing stream of fresh and turbid water fifty miles at sea. ”

“ Claverack Creek unites with Stockport Creek just west of the falls. In other connections both streams are called mill streams. In the Stephen Bayard patent of 1741, the name of the fall on Stockport Creek is noted as "A certain fall . . . called by the Indians Kasesjewack" The several names are perhaps from Cochik'uack (Moh.) , "A wild, dashing" stream. Cochik'uack, by the way, is one of the most corrupted names of record.
[FN] "We came to a creek, where, near the river, lives a man whom they call the Child of Luxury (t'kinder van walde) . ”

“ Cassina or Red Cedar Lake derives some importance from having been designated as the true source of the Mississippi river. It is about eight miles long and six in breadth, and presents a beautiful sheet of transparent water. On its banks are elm, maple, and pine trees, fields of Indian rice, rushes and reeds; in other places there is an open beach of clean pebbles. Pike, carp, trout and cat-fish are caught in its waters. Towards its western extremity is an island covered with trees, from which it derives its name, though no red cedar is found around its shores. ”

“ There the waters of the San Joaquin will be arrested at Friant, where they would take leave of the mountains, and will be diverted north and south through a system of canals and sold to irrigate more than a million acres of land, some as far as 160 miles away. A cost of refreshing this great expanse of semiarid land is that, except for occasional spills, only a dry river bed will cross the plain below the dam. Here, however, surplus waters from the north are utilized, for through a 150-mile canal Sacramento water is to be pumped to the cultivated lands formerly dependent on the San Joaquin. ”

“ There are several rapids in this short distance, during which the river varies its breadth from five hundred yards to half a mile. Its channel is stony. At the grand rapid, the Saskatchawan forms a sudden bend, from south to east, and works its way through a narrow channel, deeply worn into the limestone strata. The stream, rushing with impetuous force over a rocky and uneven bottom, presents a sheet of foam, and seems to bear with impatience the straitened confinement of its lofty banks. ”

“ Many clothes, which the Indians had in cane hurdles and on rafts to carry over, floated down stream, the people of Casqui filling their canoes with them; and, in fear that the Christians might take these away, their chief went off with them down the river to his territory, without taking leave. At this the Governor became indignant, and directly returning to Pacaha, two leagues on the road, he overran the country of Casqui, capturing twenty or thirty of its men. ”

“ The watershed between the Orinoco and the Rio Negro is here very ill defined, and near the bifurcation a line of slight elevation on the southern bank of the former river is all that exists to separate the two great drainage systems. At the head of the Casiquiare the elevation is sufficiently reduced to allow some part of the water of the Orinoco to overflow [233] into the southern drainage area, and so affords a through waterway to the whole of the Amazon Valley. ”

“ Every morning the bell rings for matins, and the young girls and boys assemble in the church and sing a few hymns; the same takes place in the evening; and on Sundays the church is always opened, and service performed by the Commissario and the Indians.
Soon after leaving the village we passed the mouth of the Cassiquiare, that singular stream which connects the Rio Negro with the Orinooko near the sources of both. It is a mixture of white and black water, and swarms with pium͂s, which are abundant down to São Carlos ”

“ This appears to be the particular feature alluded to by the Indian name. About four miles above this lake, and say fifteen from Cass Lake, the rapids commence. It was eight o'clock A. M. when we reached this point, and we had then been four hours in our canoes from the Andrúsia portage. These rapids soon proved themselves to be formidable. Boulders of the geological drift period are frequently encountered in ascending them, and the river spreads itself over so considerable a surface that it became necessary for the bowsmen and steersmen to get out into the shallows and lead up the canoes. ”

“ In many cases the only way to fish or view some pleasant water-course is to walk in the water—for the banks generally rise abruptly. It is only by the wider streams that gravel strips or edges of green sward give a dry foothold. The pretty brooks and streams between Grand River and Cascapedia have pure and sparkling water in their channels, and these, like the streams to the east, are bordered by perpendicular banks that are grass-grown and plentifully covered with a profusion of wild flowers. ”

“ The old pioneer is now poor, but his friends are sufficiently zealous in his behalf to see that his wants go not unsupplied. One can not pass over this region and at the same time observe how rapidly the Sacramento River is being obstructed by the immense deposits of sand and sediment which its current is daily bringing down, thus forming bars and deltas destined not only to intercept but probably to suspend at no distant day navigation to its upper waters,—without feeling the pressing importance of a railroad connection between Sacramento and the more northern regions of California. ”

“ Bounded on the west by the Cascade Mountains, the plain extends far towards the south,—a sterile, treeless waste."
The Cascades.—"About forty miles below the Dalles, all navigation is suspended by a series of rapids called the Cascades. The wild grandeur of this place surpasses description. The river rushes furiously over a narrow bed filled with bowlders, and bordered by mountains which echo back the roar of the waters. The descent at the principal rapids is thirty-four feet; and the total fall at the Cascades, sixty-one feet. Salmon pass up the river in great numbers ”

“ M. Castelnau thinks that this last cascade is the first impassable barrier to the navigation of the Ucayali upwards; but he found many places below this where the river had but a depth of three feet, and many, though unimportant, rapids. ”

“ In 1848 water was first introduced from Lake Cochituate, through a brick conduit (except the cast-iron syphon over Charles River) , oviform in shape, large end down, 6.33 feet high and 5 feet wide. Its length is 14.627 miles, with a total fall of 4.26 feet. It has a capacity of delivering 16 million gallons daily, with a velocity of one foot per second. The area of water surface, at full water, of Lake Cochituate is 800 acres; when drawn down 10 feet or level of the flow line of conduit, the area is 489 acres. Elevation is 134.36 feet, and bottom of conduit at dam 121 feet above tide level. ”

“ Ten thousand acres should be acquired on the west side of the Sacramento Valley, near Colusa, and 10,000 Homecroft Reservists located thereon, who would work on a great system to control the flood waters of the Sacramento River, and to save and utilize the silt for fertilization by building a series of large settling basins. ”

“ Reaching the overflowed country, I have to take to the trestle-work and begin the tedious process of trundling along that aggravating roadway, where, to the music of rushing waters, I have to step from tie to tie, and bump, bump, bump, my machine along for six weary miles. The Sacramento River is the outlet for the tremendous volumes of water caused every spring by the melting snows on the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and these long stretches of open trestle have been found necessary to allow the water to pass beneath. ”

“ We saw during this morning some boats with people and some houses empty of people, because at the noise of the launches they cleared out. At six leagues we reached another opening to the starboard, running northeast. Either the latter or the one previously mentioned is that which forms the main Sacramento River. We passed by the latter and kept along the same one we had been navigating. The whole river is made a great grove by the number and luxuriance of the trees, although only with difficulty can one get to shore. ”

“ This great river is represented as running from its delta as far as beyond the Meta, from south to north, like the river Magdalena. The tributary streams, therefore, which were made to issue from the lake Cassipa, the Carony, the Arui, and the Caura, then took the direction of the latitude, while in nature they follow that of a meridian. Beside the lakes Parima and Cassipa, a third was traced upon the maps, from which the Aprouague (Apurwaca) was made to issue. It was then a general practice among geographers to attach all rivers to great lakes. ”

“ The Ne Plus Ultra does its best on comparatively high, well-drained soils, adjacent to the larger streams in the Sacramento Valley, such as the lands along the Sacramento River, Putah Creek, Cache Creek, etc., though it also grows and produces well in the Banning district and in many of the foothill sections where conditions are favorable. ”

“ The region traversed this afternoon is the mouth of the San Joaquin, and it must be crossed at high tide because it contains a shoal on which boats run aground. The difference noticed between the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin is that the latter carries a smaller volume of water, although in some places it is wider. All that we have passed is nothing but pure tule swamp, without a tree under which the wanderer will find shade or a stick of wood with which to warm himself. ”

“ The most of them stand opposite where we considered the shores too gradual to admit of a slide. There are many large nooks in the Mountains, along this part of the River, which are suitable for small settlements. Fifty miles below the Mission we came to the Cascade Falls. – Here the River, compressed into two thirds of its usual width, descends over huge rocks, several hundred yards, with an inclination of about five degrees; and from the head to the foot of the Rapids, a distance of four miles, the water descends about fifty feet. ”

“ On the contrary, the river Sacramento flowing from the north, from quite another region, has its source, according to the Indians of the mission, in a great lake. I myself conjecture, that the Slavianka, which falls into the sea near Ross, is an arm of it.
The many rivers flowing through this fruitful country will be of the greatest use to future settlers. The low ground is exactly adapted to the cultivation of rice; and the higher, from the extraordinary strength of the soil, would yield the finest wheat-harvests. ”

“ King's river presents in the maximum flow of the season about twice to three times as much as Kern river; the Tuolumne river about as much as King's. As we go farther north, the Sacramento river presents more than three times as much as the Tuolumne, so that in the northern part of the great valley, where the rainfall on the valley itself is greatest, and, consequently, the necessity for irrigation is least, the irrigation supply increases; and conversely, the greatest area of irrigation in the valley and the greatest necessity for it, is, in general, where the water supply is least. ”

“ The Indian boatmen always appear much delighted at having successfully surmounted the cachuelas, although they have to prepare for very long hours of hard paddling up the section of the river from the rapids to Exaltacion, as, owing to this length being much infested with savages on both shores, it is customary to stop as little as possible during the day. ”

“ The summits of this range have been but seldom seen by white men, and have never been scaled. The river drains the whole territory, but loses itself in a terrific marsh before its tide reaches the Mexican gulf, toward which it runs. The current is exceedingly rapid; and, after passing for hundreds of miles under the land and under the sea, it unites its submarine torrent near the west end of Cuba, with that of the Orinoco and the Amazon, and thus forms that great oceanic river called the Gulf Stream. ”

“ Beyond and adjoining Cassiobury is Grove Park, the Earl of Clarendon’s seat, just glimpsed in passing. Now the Grand Junction Canal and the river Gade, flowing in one channel, are seen on the left, and presently we cross over them, turning slightly to the left at the hamlet of Hunton Bridge. A canal is not usually a beautiful object, being straight and formal, and generally with the commonplace surroundings of coal and other wharves ”

“ It is very light, and possesses a [352] white color in inferior situations, but the surface is somewhat colored by fallen leaves and other decaying vegetation. It imbeds fluvatile shells and some vegetable remains, the species of which have not been ascertained. The opposite, or west side of the river consists of a kind of puddingstone, or caschalo, made up of pebbles of quartz, &c., cemented by carbonate of lime, of a yellow color and translucent. This beautiful aggregate is overlayed by a stratum, of fifteen or twenty feet in thickness, of diluvial soil. ”

“ The Cascades, where the salmon first meet with a hindrance to their upward course, is a lovely spot. The vast river here breaks its way through the Cascade Mountains, a mountain-gap unequalled, I should say, in depth and extent, by any in the world. Some parts are massive walls of rock, and others wooded slopes like to a narrow valley. One can hardly imagine the possibility of so great a change in climate, and consequently vegetation, as there is betwixt this place and the Dalles, only a few miles farther up the river. ”