Cimarron River

“ Of all the rivers of this character, the Cimarron, being on the route from Missouri to Santa Fé, has become the most famous. Its water disappears in the sand and reappears again, in so many places, that some travellers have contended that it 'ebbs and flows' periodically. This is doubtless owing to the fact, that the little current which may flow above the sand in the night, or in cloudy weather, is kept dried up, in an unshaded channel, during the hot sunny days. But in some places the sand is so porous that the water never flows above it, except during freshets. ”

“ The prostrate column lay like a wing-dam, half across the stream, and over it the Salmon piled itself. Disintegration followed; bergs heaved themselves into sight and went rolling and lunging after the billow which was rushing down-stream with the speed of a locomotive. They ground and clashed together in furious confusion as the river spun them; the greater ones up-ended themselves, casting off muddy cascades. From the depths of the flood came a grinding and crunching as ice met rock. ”

“ If it were not for the monument to the Ameses, there would be nothing to mark the highest point. For all the wonderful scenery on the Rio Grande road, between Cimarron and Pueblo, the Union Pacific in the same longitudes has nothing to show. From an artistic stand-point, one road has crossed the ranges at the most tame and uninteresting point that could be found, and the other at the most picturesque.
At Cimarron, the road again strikes the Gunnison, and plunges into the famous Black Cañon. ”

“ The piles that support this wharf are pointed with iron, a precaution rendered necessary by the peculiarly hard formation of the river bed at this locality.
As the soil is impregnated with nitrate of potash, the well and other water is rendered unfit for table use. The wealthier citizens have deep cisterns at their residences, in which rain water is preserved; but the poorer classes have no other beverage than the river water, which is carried around the city in barrels, upon horses and mules, and retailed at a moderate price. ”

“ Threshing up against the current, the gunboats and stern-wheelers one after another entered the gorge. The Nile, which below is nearly a mile across, narrows to a bare 200 yards. The pace of the stream becomes more swift. Great swirls and eddies disturb its surface. High on either side rise black, broken, and precipitous cliffs, looking like piles of gigantic stones. Through and among them the flood-river pours with a loud roaring, breaking into foam and rapids wherever the submerged rocks are near the surface. Between the barren heights and the water is a strip of green bushes and grass. ”

“ The course of the Cormorant was shifted slightly, and by the muddy color of the water Payne knew they were entering the river proper. The stream here was perhaps two hundred yards across and over the stern, to port and starboard, the banks were plainly visible. The land was low, so low that it seemed but a little higher than the water level, but it bore an amazingly abundant growth. The river seemed to flow through a channel cut in the dense, solid vegetation. Great cypress trees towered up from the water, enormously thick at the roots and rapidly dwindling above. ”

“ There were neither roads nor well-marked trails, and the only timber to be found—which generally grew only along the streams—was so scraggy and worthless as hardly to deserve the name. Nor was water by any means plentiful, even though the section is traversed by important streams, the Republican, the Smoky Hill, the Arkansas, the Cimarron, and the Canadian all flowing eastwardly, as do also their tributaries in the main. ”

“ Beneath us, in the valley Ray or Roedale, a branch of Wens [Pg 174] leydale, spreads Simmer Water, a lake of one hundred and five acres. Shut in by hills, and sprinkled with wood around its margin, it beautifies and enlivens the landscape. It abounds in trout, moreover, and bream and grayling, and any one who chooses may fish therein, as well as in the Ure, all the way down to Bainbridge, and farther. The river trout are considered far superior to those of the lake. ”

“ Pursuing our journey on the morrow, we descended to the river, and held our way over Chimeroo’s prairie, passing beneath the lofty ridge, whose outline had assumed the image of a human face.
About mid-day we reached the banks of Chimeroo’s river, which, being flooded, we forded,230 and, climbing its steep north shore, halted for dinner. It would not be easy to exaggerate the beauty of the country through which the trail had carried us, or the sensation of rest which came to one as, looking out over the landscape, the fair spring scene stole insensibly on the mind. ”

“ At certain times, when the best pasturage is on the other bank of the Rhône, the drovers drive their manades toward the river. When they reach the shore, they press close upon them to force them in. The earth-colored water of the river flows bubbling by. The beasts hesitate. Some slowly put their heads down to the stream and drink, not knowing what is required of them. Others suddenly show signs of life at the “singing” of the water, stretch their necks, breathe noisily, and low and neigh. ”

“ Very well, they should have it.
Though the dam was practically wrecked, the main canal was intact. Its intake was just above the dam, solidly built of masonry, with sluice gates to control the volume of water. Without the dam it carried a comparatively small stream. With the dam, and the consequent raising of the water level, it would roar full from wall to wall, a river in itself.
Just at its lower lip Farwell began to drive piles at an angle upstream. ”

“ It is navigated by stout and narrow flat-bottomed boats of light draft, constructed so as to quickly turn sharp corners, bump the shores and run on logs without injury. The river turns constantly at short intervals and doubles upon itself in 385 almost every mile, while the huge cypress trees often compress the water way so that a wider boat could not get through. There are many beautiful views in its course displaying the noble ranks of cypress trees rising as the stream bends along its bordering edge of swamps. ”

“ After some stay, we set out with fresh boats and crews, and were five days passing the wild rapids between here and Wieng Chan. The river finds its way among low hills in a narrow, deep channel between clay-slate rocks alternating with sandstones and conglomerates with a general easterly dip. The rapids are of the whirlpool and eddy character, and extend for miles on end; the water is in places confined to a width of 150 feet, and the rushes, boilings, spinnings, and general deafening pandemonium which results is astounding; not one place is like another, nor one whirlpool like the next. ”

“ Underbrush was dense in the low grounds along the creeks and ravines, but generally not so thick on the high land as to prevent men passing through with ease. There are two small creeks running from north of the town and connecting some four miles south, where they form Bridge Creek which empties into the Tuscumbia River. Corinth is on the ridge between these streams and is a naturally strong defensive position. The creeks are insignificant in volume of water, but the stream to the east widens out in front of the town into a swamp impassable in the presence of an enemy. ”

“ Nevertheless, although in open water, we now find ourselves prisoners in a species of lake, as we are completely shut in by a serious dam of dense rafts of vegetation that have been borne forward and tightly compressed by the great force of this new river. It is simply ridiculous to suppose that this river can ever be rendered navigable. One or two vessels, if alone, would be utterly helpless, and might be entirely destroyed with their crews by a sudden change that would break up the country and inclose them in a trap from which they could never escape. ”

“ On the 19th of July, at nine in the morning, we left Kimba; our host’s son served us as a guide. We travelled a mile to the south, and crossed a wide river, which was running from west to east, at the rate of two knots and a half an hour; in this place it was eight or nine feet deep; its banks which are rather high and barren, are composed of grey argillaceous earth, and in some parts of red earth mixed with small gravel. I inquired the name of this river, and nobody could inform me what it was; at last an old woman told me that it was the Sarano, and that is the same which passes by Kankary. ”

“ The Nile never flows over the top of the dam, but always through the gates and the canal at one side. When the gates are closed during the dry season, enough water is held back by this structure of steel and granite to form a [133] lake over one hundred miles long, and this is let out as needed to supplement the ordinary flow of the river and give the crops plenty of water all summer through. There is water enough in the reservoir to give all the families of the United States all they could use for four or five months, and enough to supply Great Britain and Ireland the entire year. ”

“ After three miles on the last reach the river turns gradually with a bend, to its general southerly direction, the bend being encircled by a low bank covered with tall cypresses, which keep the traveller in constant dread of falling on his boat, which in spite of his utmost exertion is forced by an irresistible current close into the bend. ”

“ High water does not always deter, but rapid rising or falling is fraught with risk. After several days' waiting the status of the water was considered safe, and, leaving three boatloads to be called for later, in the middle of January, we made a start and halted at a sand slope where the river ran narrow among low hills, two hundred metres below the first great kiham. Malay rattan gatherers, with four prahus, were already camped here awaiting a favourable opportunity to negotiate the kihams, and they too were going to make the attempt next morning. ”

“ The actual name seems taken from the State of Zimmé (see JANGOMAY) or Chiang-mai.
c. 1544.—"So proceeding onward, he arrived at the Lake of Singipamor, which ordinarily is called Chiammay...."—F. M. Pinto, Cogan's tr., p. 271. 1552.—"The Lake of Chiamai, which stands to the northward, 200 leagues in the interior, and from which issue six notable streams, three of which combining with others form the great river which passes through the midst of Siam, whilst the other three discharge into the Gulf of Bengala."—Barros, I. ix. 1. ”

“ But the Pigeon River, through the last twenty miles of its course before it flows into Lake Superior, is so obstructed by falls and by cascades in rocky canyons as to be impossible of navigation. On the Canadian side the land is too mountainous and the distance too great for portaging to be practicable ”

“ The stream here flows nearly west, through a beautiful valley of alluvial land, formed by the Cumberland mountains and a continuation of the Blue Ridge of Virginia. Immediately opposite the termination of the Cumberland mountains commences a broken and rocky surface, which extends along the shore of the river for many miles, presenting 168the most varied and novel scenery in nature; while the other shore is level, fertile, and mostly in a high state of cultivation, abounding in verdant fields of meadow, corn and tobacco. ”

“ It descends rapidly at its head to the highland bench below the mountains and traverses this to the falls, then flows in rapids (the Great Shoals) for some 10 m. through a fine gorge with cliffs 300-400 ft. high, and descends between bluffs of decreasing height and beauty into its lower level. Save in the mountains its gradient is slight, and below the falls, except for a number of small rapids, the flow of the stream is equable. ”

“ For lack of a reservoir system to withhold and control the flow of water, the river falls from flood-tide--seventy-one feet--to points so low as to seriously impede or prevent navigation. Sometimes even the smallest steamers and barges fail to pass between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, and coal famines have not been unfrequent, resulting from difficult navigation. An equable flow of this stream is impossible. It will always be subject to these extremes. ”

“ A flume, then, is an immense trough which takes up a portion of the river, and with the aid of a dam compels it to run in another channel, leaving the vacated bed of the stream ready for mining purposes.
There is a gigantic project now on the tapis, of fluming the entire river for many miles, commencing a little above Rich Bar. Sometimes these fluming companies are eminently successful; at others, their operations are a dead failure. ”

“ LITTLE RIVER RAPIDS, NORTH CAROLINA.—At this point the river flashes over a sloping ledge of rocks and boulders with irresistible power and a roar like that of thunder. At all seasons of the year the scene is splendid and inspiring, but when the river is swollen with the spring floods and the waters come with a mighty and irresistible flood, dashing over the rocks and carrying away trees and boulders with titanic force and rage, the view is awe-inspiring and grand beyond the power of human pen to describe. ”

“ Simonds and his partners were too much engaged in securing their own lands from forfeiture 333 to pay much attention to those of Col. Kemble. However on the arrival of the Loyalists a number of lots were speedily disposed of and by the efforts of Ward Chipman, who succeeded James Simonds as agent, the greater part of the lands were saved from escheat. Col. Kemble visited the River St. John in 1788. His correspondence with Ward Chipman relative to the improvement of the Manor is of interest. ”