Charles River

“ Half a mile thence on the same side of the River is Water-town built upon one of the branches of Charles-River, very fruitful and of large extent, watered with many pleasant springs and small Rivulets, the Inhabitants live scatteringly. ”

“ Analyses show that the water of Charles river above the Newton lower falls is, when filtered, fit, though barely fit, to drink, and yet it has received the refuse of forty-two mills and factories, with a population of 14,000 persons known to be sewering into the river, and a population in the basin of three times that number. ”

“ There are two granite dams 500 feet apart. The first dam was built on quicksand, and after filling of the lake, springs boiled up and washed away the sand.
The new supply from Sudbury River was inaugurated in 1878. The drainage is 78.24 square miles. The conduit is 16 miles long, with a grade of 1.056 feet per mile. It is built of concrete and rubble masonry, lined with brick. It crosses the Charles River by granite bridge 475 feet long and 75 feet high. Its sectional area is 56.75 square feet, and capacity 70 millions daily. ”

“ The view up the Peace River from the high prairie level is singularly beautiful, the river disclosing a series of reaches, like inland lakes, far to the west, whilst from the south comes the immense valley of the Heart, and, farther up, the Smoky River, a great tributary which drains a large extent of prairie country mixed with timber. ”

“ The country is inferior in quality, the flats narrowing to an average of half a mile with very dry and thinly scattered tufts of grass. The bed of the river is better defined, and formed at times a single channel 250 yards wide, dry and sandy, as water was only once seen during the day. Low rocky ridges of sandstone gradually approached its banks, and near the camp porphyry, slate, and coarse granite formed detached hills 50 to 100 feet high, seeming to indicate an approach to the ranges in which the stream takes its rise. ”

“ The general course of the river during the day was very little to the south of east, its banks still maintaining the same rocky and precipitous character, marks of inundation being frequently observed at the height of thirty feet above the present stream, which now was only running gently in a channel not more than thirty yards wide, but when in flood occupying the whole of the valley, which averages a quarter of a mile in width. The larger pools are lined with flags and reeds, and contain numbers of small fish resembling trout, similar to those found in the Lyons and Gascoyne Rivers. ”

“ Thence the vast stream sweeps boldly into the south, and with a rush discharges down the rapids, and straight over the line of precipice, in a vast tumultuous greyish-drab torrent which speedily emerges into comparatively still water below. The rock here is an exceedingly hard, mottled limestone, resembling the stone at St. Andrew's Rapids on Red River. Where exposed it is pitted or bitten into by the endless action of wind and water, and lies in thick layers, forming an irregular dyke all along the shore, over the surface of which passes the portage, some forty yards in length. ”

“ For the first forty miles the banks are well wooded with white spruce, canoe birch, aspen and balsam poplar. Mount Charles rises to a height of one thousand five hundred feet on the left side of the river. In climbing the hill I was surprised at the size of the trees around its lower slope. White spruce of about twenty inches diameter were quite common as well as fine specimens of canoe-birch, balsam, poplar and aspen. At the lake the country is quite destitute of trees, as they have all been used for fuel by the Indians. ”

“ It is the longest river of the Colony, has its upper basin in the North-West angle of the Lake district, to the Eastward of the Greenough and Gascoigne, and on its banks the first specimens of the fauna and flora of the North coast are apparent. It has a deep channel above its mouth. The river, in its middle and lower courses, winds through an irregular valley, rich in minerals, for more than 100 miles is a direct line without an affluent. ”

“ Proud of its strength and grace, it surges ahead, rumbling in the vast caverns of its seething furnaces, panting in the depths of its powerful lungs, straining with muscles that glory in their task, hurling aside from iron-shod beak the burdened billows of the opposing river. ”

“ To latitude 28 degrees 7 minutes the river continued to come from north by east through an extensive plain, bounded on the west by a low range of trap and granite hills, at an average distance of six or seven miles, while to the eastward only a few distant peaks were visible, flooded-gum growing plentifully for more than a mile back from the river, on flats of tolerably good pasture. Receding somewhat further from the river, the country opens out into extensive plains yielding but little grass ”

“ Early to-day the river began to throw off numerous channels to the north and south, shedding, when in a flood, a considerable amount of water over the adjoining plains, clothing the country in the garb of spring, the grass growing luxuriantly along the numerous channels, atriplex and other low bushes generally covering the plain, the lowest levels of which were extensively covered with fields of mud from one to fourteen inches thick, the deposit of a single inundation, yet scarcely hardened by the summer sun. ”

“ The banks of the stream are sandstone and sand, and the channel scarcely three yards wide, with a strip of grassy thicket twenty yards in width along the stream, which is the only feed near the river, as the plain through which it runs produces nothing but scrub and banksia with a few grass-trees. ”

“ The only people who, through their employments, knew the interior well were the Indians and half-breed hunters. It was the statements of these, therefore, and of the few prosperous farmers and stockmen scattered here and there, which afforded us our only reliable knowledge.
The most extensive prairies adjacent to the Upper Peace River are those to the north already described. The nearest on the south side are the prairies of Spirit River, a small stream which divides several townships of first-class black, loamy soil, well wooded in parts, but with considerable prairie. ”

“ At ten miles the river has broken through a ridge of opaline rocks, in irregular masses, resembling flints, lying north-east and south-west, and a few miles further coming in contact with the south-east foot of Mount Puckford, it doubles back round its north-east base, and there takes a general north-west course to latitude 24 degrees 36 minutes, and longitude 116 degrees east, which we reached by noon of the 7th, a considerable tributary joining at this point from the northward. ”

“ For the first twelve miles along the river the flats much improved, and were only occasionally broken up by stony ridges; good country was seen to extend up the tributaries, several of which came in from the north. To the south, at two or three miles distant, and running parallel to the river for many miles, was an even grassy range of moderate elevation nearly destitute of trees or bushes ”

“ Returning to the river, I plunged into the current to relieve me from the pinching frost, that gnawed every part of my skin that had become wet; and rushing forward as fast as the weight of the water, that pressed me downward, would permit, was soon up to my chin in melted ice, when rising to the surface, I exerted my utmost strength and skill to gain the opposite shore by swimming in the shortest space of time. At every stroke of my arms and legs, they were cut and bruised by cakes of solid ice, or weighed down by floating masses of congealed snow. ”

“ Beyond the basins the river is continued through a narrow gorge for 15 miles, with water shoaling gradually to 2 fathoms. From the extremity, and from every gorge and ravine on either side, perennial streams of fresh water pour down. These are clothed with luxuriant vegetation (forests of pine trees were found by Grey on the hills on the South side) , among which the pandanas and fern are most notable; and the whole country is not less rich in animal than in vegetable life, both by land and water.
The tides on this coast rise from 25 to 35 feet. ”

“ The feed was so good on this river that we were able to proceed to-day to latitude 20 degrees 59 minutes 33 seconds; the country improving much, grassy flats extending for some miles to the northward, the channel of the river being augmented by the junction of the large tributary crossed on our eastward track on the afternoon of the 29th August. ”

“ The houses had been burned and the cultivated land was fast relapsing into a wilderness state. Nevertheless the early English settlers reaped some advantage from the improvements made by the Acadians, for we learn from Charles Morris’ description of the river in 1768, that at the site of the old French settlement at St. Anne’s Point there was about five hundred acres of cleared upland in English grass from whence the inhabitants of Maugerville got the chief part of their Hay for their Stock. ”

“ Charles, with a rude little church and a campanile of logs. The curé, robed in decent black and wearing a tall silk hat of the vintage of 1860, sat on the veranda of his trim presbytery, looking down upon us, like an image of propriety smiling at Bohemianism. Other craft appeared on the river. A man and his wife paddling an old dugout, with half a dozen children packed in amidships; a crew of lumbermen, in a sharp-nosed bateau, picking up stray logs along the banks; a couple of boatloads of young people returning merrily from a holiday visit ”

“ This is, however, easily accounted for, as the country had been inundated last season, though the current had not been sufficiently strong to remove some emu bones and mussel shells which lay round a native camping place within a few yards of the spot. No other indications having been found, we continued the search down the river, examining every likely spot for marked trees, but without success. The general aspect of the country was extremely level, and even the few distant ridges which were visible had but small elevation above the plain, the highest apparently not exceeding 200 or 300 feet. ”

“ The fog extended only a few miles from the river, and from the top of an eminence which I gained, an hour after wringing my clothes, the stars were distinctly visible. Here I discovered that the road I was travelling bore nearly east, and was not likely to take me to the Savannah river, for a long time. Nevertheless, I travelled hard until daylight appeared before me, which was my signal for turning into the woods, and seeking a place of safety for the day. ”

“ We had not seen any natives for many days, but a few passed the camp on the opposite side of the river on the evening of the 25th. They would not, however, come to us; but fled into the interior in great apparent alarm. ”

“ Lake Charles is in the prairie region of southern Louisiana, to the N. of which, covering a large part of the state, are magnificent forests of long-leaf pine, and lesser lowland growths of oak, ash, magnolia, cypress and other valuable timber. The Watkins railway extending to the N.E. and the Kansas City Southern extending to the N.W. have opened up the very best of the forest. The country to the S. and W. is largely given over to rice culture. Lake Charles is the chief centre of lumber manufacture in the state, and has rice mills, car shops and an important trade in wool. ”

“ Nor does the chalk stream usually run like a western river. It moves at most times but little faster than the rivers on which men go boating or float-fishing for roach. Its environment is smooth, its course is peaceful, and its fall gradual. It is all this that gives the flavour and charm of the unexpected, when you{66} arrive at the bank and find a stream gliding past your feet as translucent as if it had just gushed out from a limestone mountain in Cumberland. ”

“ Judging from the number of the pathways from the water to the beach, across the valley, the natives must be very numerous; we have not seen any, although we have passed many of their recent tracks and encampments. The cabbage and fan palm-trees have been very plentiful during to-day's journey down to this valley. This creek I named "Charles Creek," after the eldest son of John Chambers, Esq.; it is one by which some large bodies of springs discharge their surplus water into Van Diemen's Gulf; its banks are of soft mud, and boggy. Wind, south. Latitude, 12° 13 ́ 30". ”

“ 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. ”

“ Grandest of American rivers though it is, you will be glad to get away from it to a noble stream like the Columbia, to a headstrong flood like the Missouri, or an inland sea like the Mississippi; on them at least you can draw a full breath and speak aloud without a feeling that the silent mountains may fall on you or the raging river swallow you up.
In the vast territory lying between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean the rivers are fast being harnessed for a work that will one day make the most barren spots fertile. ”