Coosa River

“ The falls of Coosa river, one mile above the town, can be easily passed in canoes, either up or down. The town had forty warriors at the time of Hawkins' visit (1799) . Identical with Little Tálisi; Milfort, p. 27: "le petit Talessy ou village des Noyers." A map of this section will be found in Schoolcraft, Indians, V, 255. Literally: "in the hickory grove."
Okfuski (better Akfáski) , an Upper Creek town, erected on both sides of Tallapoosa river, about thirty-five miles above Tukabatchi. ”

“ A short distance westward, the Alabama River is formed by the union of the Coosa and Tallapoosa, and coming down a winding course a few miles from the junction, sweeps around a grand bend to then go away towards the setting sun, and ultimately seek the Gulf. The story is that a wearied Creek Indian, seeking quiet in the far-off land, wandered out of the mountains to the fertile plains of this attractive region. ”

“ From the general tone of the narrative it is evident that the two towns were near together in De Soto’s time, and it may be that the Elvas chronicle confounded Kasiʻta with Koasati, a principal Upper Creek town, a short distance below the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa. At Coste they crossed the river and continued westward “through many towns subject to the cacique of Coça” (Elvas) until they came to the great town of Coça itself. ”

“ The scenery along the route from Coquille to Roseburg possesses all the charms peculiar to the Coast Mountains, and Enchanted Prairie, the name of one of the valleys on the east side of the range, conveys no sense of bombast to the beholder. The river cuts deeply into the mountains from its source in beautiful Camas Valley, the road approaching the edge of perpendicular cliffs of awe-inspiring height. From Camas, the Roseburg road soon emerges into the Umpqua Valley, the distance by this route from Coos Bay being about forty miles. ”

“ The next morning the remainder of the troops landed, and General Stevens advanced across the island on the shell-road to Port Royal Ferry on the Coosaw River, with two regiments and Ransom’s guns. The rebel cavalry, falling back without resistance, crossed the ferry, taking to the farther side the ferry-boat and ropes and all other boats. The Coosaw is a large and deep tidal river, separating the island from the mainland. It is bordered by wide, impassable marshes, across which at the ferry long causeways extended on each side from the firm land to the main river. ”

“ The calm surface reflects the quaint oriental buildings, the beautiful palms and trees that nourish on its banks, and the gorgeous colours of the sunset, with a picturesque charm that delights the artistic eye. Like the Adyar, the Cooum River is nothing but a sandy watercourse that merges into a broad backwater as soon as it arrives within sound of the surf. ”

“ FERRY CREEK, Coos County. Ferry Creek is south of the town of Coos Bay and east of Delmar. In August, 1943, Mrs. Mary M. Randleman of Coquille wrote the compiler that the stream was named for the Ferry family, pioneer settlers, and not for a ferryboat.
FERRY CREEK, Coos County. This stream flows into Coquille River near Bandon. According to information from Mrs. Emma Drane, a pioneer resident of the locality, John Lewis operated a ferry on Coquille River near the mouth of this stream in 1870, and the creek took its name from the ferry. The style Fairy Creek is wrong according to Mrs. Drane. ”

“ We concluded this must be Soda Creek and that we had made only twenty miles during the day, so that we were still about eighteen miles from Green River.
This is certainly a hard, rough country, a succession of canyons and mountains, with a variety of colors in the sand and rocks. We have not met a soul or seen a living thing, save some cattle this evening in the creek bed. Not a thing lives here, it would seem, but a coyote, now and then a skylark, and a few lizards and horned toads. ”

“ The Nile here enters a rocky valley between Gebel Kookoo and the western mountains, and foams and frets around and against rock and island, until, suddenly contracting, it breaks into a roaring torrent, and dashes furiously onward in the shadow of perpendicular cliffs. Waterfall succeeds to waterfall, and it is difficult to identify the swollen, thunderous, angry river with the calm clear stream that brightens the fertile pastures of Shooa. ”

“ The present effect is one of great beauty, wild vines garlanding these roots with a grace no art could imitate, and mosses wrapping them in sheaths of velvety softness and many hues, which the moist atmosphere of the coast constantly feeds.
Salmon River, Alseya Bay, Siuslaw River, Umpqua River, Coos Bay, Coquille River, Port Orford, and several smaller inlets, have attractive features, which in time will make them better known to tourists and pleasure-seekers. Meanwhile there is room for all who come, and sport as well as space. ”

“ The Willamette river is navigable to Harrisburg, 152 m. above Portland, but boats seldom go farther up the river than Corvallis, 119 m. above Portland, and the depth at low water to Corvallis is only 3 ft. On the coast, Coos Bay, a tidal estuary, is the principal harbour between the mouth of the Columbia and San Francisco; it admits vessels drawing 14 to 16 ft. of water, and both the north and south forks of the Coos river are navigable for vessels of light draft (the depth at low water is only 1.5 ft.) ”

“ This river takes its rise to the north-east of Lake Oneida, and, after a course of one hundred and forty miles, joins the Hudson about ten miles above Albany. The Cohoz fall is about three miles from the mouth of this river, and at a place where its width is about three hundred yards: a ledge of rocks extends quite across the stream, and from the top of these the water falls about fifty feet perpendicular: the line of the fall, from one side of the river to the other, is nearly straight. ”

“ Coos County. Coos County was created December 22, 1853, by the Territorial Legislature. It originally comprised parts of the western portions of Umpqua and Jackson Counties. Coos is an Indian name of a native tribe whose habitat was the vicinity of Coos Bay. The name is first mentioned by Lewis and Clark, who spell it Cook-koo-oose (Thwaites' Original Journals, volume VI, page 117) . The explorers heard the name among the Clatsop Indians, Slacum, in his report of 1837, gives the name of Coos River, Cowis; Wilkes, in Western America, spells it Cowes. ”

“ Coos Bay is to be reached by rail from Drain's; and as lovely and genial a spot of earth as one could desire is to be made easily accessible. The prodigality with which nature has adorned the hill-sides hereabouts with the elegant rhododendron, the blue spirea, nutmeg, myrtle, and other trees and shrubs famed in the poetry of the Adriatic, was a constant joy to me while I remained here. ”

“ At the upper Cohos the river spreads twenty-four miles wide. For five or six weeks ships of war might [Pg 116] sail over the lands that afterward produce the greatest crops of hay and grain in all America. People who can bear the sight, the groans, the tremblings, and surly motion of water, trees, and ice, through this awful passage, view with astonishment one of the greatest phenomenons in Nature. Here, water consolidated without frost, by pressure, by swiftness, between the pinching, sturdy rocks, to such a degree of induration that an iron crow cannot be forced into it ”

“ Cox's river flows over a bed of water-worn rocks which, in the upper part of the valley, is 2,150 feet above the sea, and on the road to Bathurst this bed consists of trap and granite. The river falls rapidly on leaving the granite of the vale of Clwyd to a level not much above that of the sea, and it escapes near its junction with the Warragamba from this spacious basin through a gorge about 2,200 yards wide and flanked on each side by points about 800 feet high. ”

“ Such is the country in which the Coosah has its rise; quitting which, after a foaming course 255of about forty miles, it enters the extensive plains of Purneah, through which it passes in a more tranquil state, though ever rapid, until it joins the Ganges a little below Colgong, which stands on the opposite bank, and where the Termahony, a small sluggish river of about eighty or a hundred yards in breadth, blends its waters with the great river. The Termahony is very deep, and, in the rainy season, equally impetuous. ”

“ The portion of this section west of the coast range is generally heavily timbered with fir, spruce, and cedar. Extensive coal deposits are found, some of which are developed and yield largely. Coos Bay is one of the best harbours on the Oregon Coast. Eastern Oregon embraces all the state east of the Cascade Mountains, forming a parallelogram 275 miles long and 230 miles wide. It is a great inland plateau of an altitude varying between 2000 and 5000 feet. The southern half of this plateau belongs to the Great American Basin, while the northern portion slopes towards the Columbia river valley. ”

“ All that portion of Coos county embraced within the following boundaries, to-wit: beginning at a point on the Pacific coast, at the mouth of New river, thence east to the dividing ridge of the waters of the Coquille river and Horse creek; thence following said divide which separates all of the waters of the Coquille river from those which discharge themselves directly into the ocean, until such ridge connects itself with the dividing ridge between the waters of the Coquille and Rogue rivers ”

“ When the later English travellers had gained intelligence of a river called Couara, to the west of Saccatou, and of the river which is near Funda, it was remembered that this name is also borne by the upper Dhioliba, and these three rivers have been at once identified; but it appears that Couara is a general term signifying a river. The inhabitants who in three different places have been asked the name of the river, not understanding the question, have answered by the word river. ”

“ Launches, scows, sailing craft of almost every kind, are in constant movement, loaded with every sort of commodity. Of all the means of transit, however, we will, if you please, float down the stately stream in our well-tried skiff. Independent as the Coyote god Speelyei when he used to pass up and down the river, transforming presumptuous beasts or mortals into rock at will, we will drift with the current, partaking of the very life of the rich and multifarious nature about us. We can pause as we wish on jutting crag or fir-crowned promontory or at the foot of spouting cataract. ”

“ Within a very few years, some of them have changed their course so that farms are divided into two parts, or are nearly wiped out by the wandering streams. In at least one instance, artful men have tried to steal part of a State by changing the boundary line along the bed of the river, making the stream flow many miles across a tract around which it formerly meandered. On this boundary line between the Sioux and their upper neighbors, the party met a band of Cheyennes and another of Ricaras, or Arikaras. ”

“ The view outside of distant hills and a belt of pine trees fringing the shore reminded me strongly of the Bay of Point de Galle in Ceylon, where the eastern mail steamers used to call before the construction of the harbour at Colombo.
Kôchi Bay is in reality an estuary, with a very narrow outlet, much obstructed by rocks. We seemed to be running straight on to the sandy beach, when a sudden turn to the left put our head into the river, and we came to an anchor in fifteen feet of water inside a little cove. ”

“ Another group of lakes is to be found in the Laguna district of south-western Coahuila, where the Tlahualila, Mairan, Parras and others occupy a large lacustrine depression and receive the waters of the Nazas and Aguanaval rivers from the south-west (Durango) . The size of this isolated drainage basin is very large, the Nazas River alone having a length of about 370 m. The great Mapimi desert of western Coahuila is another lacustrine depression, but only marshy lagoons remain. ”

“ Slight examination was made of Coos Bay, an opinion being formed from simply looking at the mouth that it would be found available for steamers. The Coquille River was said to be only large enough for canoes; and Rogue River also unfit for sailing vessels, being so narrow as to scarcely afford room to turn in. So much for the Oregon coast. As to the Klamath, while it had more water on the bar than any river south of the Columbia, it was so narrow and so rapid as to be unsafe for sailing vessels. ”

“ The road continues from hence, for the space of seventeen miles, on the ridge of the mountain which forms one side of Prince Regent's Glen, and there suddenly terminates in a perpendicular precipice of 676 feet. Down this Mr. Cox had constructed a road to which the governor gave the name of Cox's Pass, and to the ridge, Mount York. [1] On descending the pass, the first pasture land and soil fit for cultivation appeared, watered by two rivulets running east and west, and joining, forming Cox's River, which takes its course through Prince Regent's Glen, and empties itself into the River Nepean. ”

“ One mile and a half above this brook, we left the Coatzacoalcos, and entered the Jumuapa River. Its appearance is different from that of the Coatzacoalcos, though with indentical geological characteristics. It is about 300 feet wide at its mouth, with deep banks, and so shallow that our canoes could hardly get along through its tortuous channel filled with snags. A few days later in the season, travel by water is interrupted, and canoes can ascend as far only as Súchil. ”