Ems River

“ For this purpose we descended by a zigzag path into the vale, and making the best of our way on the banks of the Lahn (for so is the river called) came suddenly upon the town of Ems, famous in mineral story; where, finding very good lodgings, we took up our abode, and led an Indian life amongst the wilds and mountains.
After supper I walked on a smooth lawn by the river, to observe the moon journeying through a world of silver clouds that lay dispersed over the face of the heavens. It was a mild genial evening; every mountain cast its broad shadow on the surface of the stream ”

“ From Basel to below Emmerich the Rhine belongs to the German empire—about 470 m. or four-sevenths of its whole course. It is navigable all this distance as are also the Neckar from Esslingen, the Main from Bamberg, the Lahn, the Lippe, the Ruhr, the Mosel from Metz, with its affluents the Saar and Sauer. Sea-going vessels sail up the Ems as far as Halte, and river craft as far as Greven, and the river is connected with a widely branching system of canals, as the Ems-Jade and Dortmund-Ems canals. ”

“ At 5 a.m., finding a good thick copse of small fir-trees, we lay up for a rest. We were now about six miles from the river Ems, which again was some ten miles from the frontier. We decided that the Ems and the frontier itself should be crossed on the same night. ”

“ Judged on its merits, and not by the standard of the Elbe, it is a very important river. Emden is a flourishing and growing port. For shallow craft the stream is navigable far into the interior, where, aided by tributaries and allied canals (notably the connection with the Rhine at Dortmund, then approaching completion) , it taps the resources of a great area. ”

“ These roll superbly through enormous sheets of sand, unite and approach the mainland in one stately stream three miles in breadth. But then comes a sad falling off. The navigable fairway shoals and shrinks, middle grounds obstruct it, and shelving foreshores persistently deny it that easy access to the land that alone can create great seaboard cities. All the ports of the Ems are tidal; the harbour of Delfzyl, on the Dutch side, dries at low water, and Emden, the principal German port, can only be reached by a lock and a mile of canal. ”

“ The scene becomes peculiarly desolate and mournful, often giving one the impression of being far removed from civilization, threading the course of some hitherto unexplored stream. Penetrate the deep fringe of forest and morass on foot, however, and smiling prairies are found beyond, stretching to the horizon and cut up into prosperous farms. The river is here from a half to three-quarters of a mile broad, but the shallows and snags are as numerous as ever and navigation is continually attended with some danger of being either grounded or capsized. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The higher hills are crowned with forest trees, the lower ofttimes checkered with brown fields, recently planted, and rows of vines trimmed low to stakes, as in the fashion of the Rhine. The stream, though still majestic in its sweep, is henceforth a commercial slack-water, lined with noisy, grimy, matter-of-fact manufacturing towns, for the most part literally abutting one upon the other all of the way down to Pittsburg, and fast defiling the once picturesque banks with the gruesome offal of coal mines and iron plants. Surprising is the density of settlement along the river. ”

“ The river is in parts so shallow that breakwaters are built out from the banks, in order to deepen the centre of the stream; this, of course, makes the water run swifter, and it requires great toil of many horses to tug the barges up the stream. Floating down these rapids is agreeable enough, and the descent is made with very little labour, towns and villages succeeding each other on the banks, the approaches to them being lined with fruit-trees, of which the walnut and cherry are the most conspicuous. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Away up here in the mountains, the Missouri, which subsequently becomes one of the most treacherous and destructive rivers in the universe, runs through picturesque cañons and over great gorges of rock, finally leaving the State a great river, though still insignificant in comparison with the volume it is to assume, and the drainage work it is to accomplish farther away from the mighty hills among which it had its source. ”

“ Irrigation is claiming every year more of the flow of Western rivers. Even the tricksy old Missouri is contributing somewhat to irrigation, but in the queerest possible way.
With all its other eccentricities, the Missouri River leaks badly; for you know there are leaky rivers as well as leaky boats. The government [Pg 63] engineers once measured the flow of the Missouri away up in Montana, and again some hundred miles further down stream. ”

“ To reach the lowest level as soon as possible is the end each river is striving toward. If it could, each river would cut its bed to this depth at the first stage of its course. Its tools are the rocks it carries, great and small. The force that uses these tools [Pg 87] is the power of falling water, represented by the current of the stream. The upper part of a river such as the Missouri or Mississippi engages in a campaign of widening and deepening its channel, and carrying away quantities of sediment. The lower reaches of the stream flow through more level country ”

“ That Congress did not act arbitrarily in determining that 'for the purposes of navigation of said waters and the waters connected therewith,' the whole flow of the stream should be devoted exclusively to that end, is most evident when we consider the character of this stream and its relation to the whole problem of lake navigation. The river St. Marys is the only outlet for the waters of Lake Superior. The stretch of water called the falls and rapids of the river is about 3,000 feet long, and from bank to bank has a width of about 4,000 feet. ”

“ The fall being four inches to the mile, the lands just above the cut-off are made higher and above overflow, whereas just below, the lands are overflowed or become liable to overflow. The improvement of the Mississippi River itself for commercial purposes, as well as the protection of the lands, is dependent upon the building of the levees, for the levees of course confine the water within its banks, and give not only a greater volumn of water, but greater velocity for scouring purposes, which scours out the sand bars that are formed continually on the river. ”

“ They are as vital to our commerce and industry as any matter now dealt with by the State, affecting our material well-being, and they are every year increasing in extent and importance. As regards the principal rivers—the Mersey, the Tyne, the Tees, the Clyde, and the Wear especially—they are now controlled in accordance with the recommendation made by the Duke of Richmond’s Select Committee, that “each catchment area should be placed under a single body of conservators, who should be responsible for maintaining the river, from its source to its outfall, in an efficient state.” ”

“ The lofty concrete barrier which backs up Long Lake has the distinction of being the highest spillway dam in the world. The “Spokane interval” proved a highly enjoyable spell of relaxation before tackling the rough stretch of river ahead. I knew I was going to miss greatly the guiding hand and mind of Captain Armstrong, but had high hopes of Ike Emerson. ”

“ Imagine a bright day towards the end of June on the banks of a typical North Country river. The gate just passed through brings one to the tail end of a rapid stream some fifty yards in length, broken here and there by boulders, some submerged and others just showing their dark mossy heads above the surface of the water. ”

“ At some places the river has considerable width, but never sufficient depth to permit of navigation by any craft of considerable size. Its banks are occasionally high, as at Ellaville, but generally they are flat and overhung by oaks thickly festooned with moss. The current is sluggish and the water seldom clear, carrying as it does a thick vegetable solution. The stream is neither beautiful nor romantic, save as it acquires the reputation for being both through the song that has made it as famous as our largest rivers. ”

“ The engineering history of some rivers is an epitome of engineering achievements. The case of the Mississippi river, in the United States, is a notable case in point. That splendid highway, with its navigation of some 15,000 miles, and its infinite number of tributaries, each of them a noble river in itself, has been regulated, canalised, and otherwise improved at a hundred different points along its course, with results that are notable in the annals of engineering [62] precedents. Most of our rivers, lakes, and canals have gone through the same process. ”

“ As the dividing channels of the lower course point to the feasibility of amplifying the connection with the ocean highway, so the spreading branches of a river's source, which approach other head waters on a low divide, suggest the extension of inland navigation by the union of two such drainage systems through canals. Where the rivers of a country radiate from a relatively low central watershed, as from the Central Plateau of France and the Valdai Hills of Russia, nature offers conditions for extensive linking of inland waterways. ”

“ If it wasn't for the trees and brush, which prevent us seeing just where every little rise is, it would be comparatively easy, but unless we know the lie of the ground, we might plan a ditch just on the wrong side of a ridge of comparatively solid earth, which would divert the entire stream. Of course, there's a pretty good fall to the river, both the Mud River and the Red Lake River, but even so, an unobserved ridge of earth a few feet high, running along for a couple of miles would throw out the value of that particular ditch and create the cause for a new drainage area. ”

“ The shore line of the great lakes, according to estimates made in the coast survey office, measures 3,450 m., viz.: Superior, 955; Michigan, 1,320; Huron, 510; St. Clair, 65; Erie, 370 ; Ontario, 230.—The rivers of the United States may be comprised in four distinct classes: 1. The Mississippi and its affluents, which drain the region between the Alleghanies and the Rocky mountains. The chief of these affluents are: on the east, the Wisconsin, Rock, Illinois, Ohio, Yazoo, and Big Black; on the west, the Minnesota, Des Moines, Missouri, St. Francis, Arkansas, and Red river. ”

“ This is one of the most beautiful and most instructive examples of consequent drainage—that is, of streams whose direction has been determined by the inclination of the surface over which they flow—thus far discovered. Still another feature of much geographical interest is furnished by the rivers on the adjacent plain, two of which, branches of the Cheyenne River, cross the north and south extensions, respectively, of the Black Hills dome. ”

“ EMS, a town and watering-place of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, romantically situated on both banks of the Lahn, in a valley surrounded by wooded mountains and vine-clad hills, 11 m. E. from Coblenz on the railway to Cassel and Berlin. Pop. 6500. It has two Evangelical, a Roman Catholic, an English and a Russian church. There is some mining industry (silver and lead) . Ems is one of the most delightful and fashionable watering-places of Europe. ”

“ But at the beginning of the 20th century the prospects of communication with the western coast of North America and South America, and with the Orient by way of an isthmian canal, the inadequate means of transportation afforded by the railways, the efficiency of competing waterways in regulating freight rates, and the consideration of the magnificent system of inland waterways which the Mississippi and its tributaries would afford when fully developed, have created the strong demand for river improvement. ”