Holston River

“ The average width of this section between [Pg 45] the banks is one thousand feet. About one mile below its upper extremity is "Devil's Hole," a side-chasm cut out of the American bank of the river by a small stream called "Bloody Run," which, in heavy rains, forms a torrent. The "Hole" has been made by the detrition and washing out of the shale and the fall of the overlying rock. A short distance above, on the Canadian side, lies Foster's Glen, a singular and extensive lateral excavation left dry by the receding flood. ”

“ Holyoke is a New England growth. It does not resemble the smoky cities of the iron regions, nor the languid towns of the South. The swift, powerful current of water does its work without confusion, smoke or waste. Pure breezes sweep along the valley through the mountain rifts, and the mountains serve as barriers to ward off heavy gales and destructive tempests. The slope of the land toward the river gives opportunity for healthful drainage and the vicinity of mountain springs and reservoirs supplies a great requisite for a thickly settled city. ”

“ This whole region, full of swift streams, is without a bridge, and, as a consequence, getting over rivers and brooks and the dangers of ferries occupy a prominent place in the thoughts of the inhabitants. The life necessarily had the “frontier” quality all through, for there can be little solid advance in civilization in the uncertainties of a bridgeless condition. An open, pleasant valley, the Holston, but cultivation is more and more negligent and houses are few and poorer as we advance. ”

“ There was not a sound except of the gushing stream; no cattle to be seen, nor any living creature.
* * * * * *
Our way continued through interchange of pastoral and forest ground. Crossed a bridge, and then had the stream to our left in a rocky gulf overhung with trees, chiefly beeches and elms; sawing-mills on the river very picturesque. It is impossible to imagine a more beautiful descent than was before us to the vale of Hasli. The roaring stream was our companion; sometimes we looked down upon it from the edge of a lofty precipice ”

“ At a quarter of a league from the outlet, where we were, it grows narrower, and its channel is confined between two very high, steep, rocky banks, inducing the belief that the navigation would be very difficult quite up to the cataract. As to the river above the Falls, the current very often sucks into this gulf, from a great distance above, deer and stags, elk and roebucks, which, in attempting to swim the river, suffer themselves to be drawn so far down-stream that they are compelled to descend the Falls, and are overwhelmed in its frightful abyss. ”

“ Holyoke, though two hundred feet lower than Tom, is more frequented by visitors. The ascent is not very difficult, and the view from the summit is both grand and beautiful. The river is of course the most attractive feature in the landscape. Far to the north and south it stretches, like a silver, sinuous thread, gradually becoming narrower until it is lost in the distance. Owing to an optical illusion the river seems to ascend in both directions, and at the points where it is lost to view, seems on a level with the eye. ”

“ In the morning there was no abatement, and although it was off the land, we shirked the wetting we should get at sea, and decided to go over Breydon, and up the Waveney. As the tide would not make until the middle of the morning, we took the jolly and rowed down to the harbour mouth at Gorleston. It is interesting to note how, for three miles, the river flows parallel with the sea, and, on the average, under half a mile from it, the dividing land being nothing more substantial than shingle and sand. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hollis admitted that he had not seen the river within that time. Norton laughed shortly.
“She’s dry in spots now,” he informed Hollis. “There ain’t any water at all in the shallows. It’s tricklin’ through in some places, but mostly there’s nothin’ but water holes an’ dried, baked mud. In two days more, if it don’t rain, there won’t be water enough for our own stock. Then what?”
“There will be water for every steer on the range as long as it lasts,” declared Hollis grimly. “After that we’ll all take our medicine together.” ”

“ Some were thrown into the water. One man (Butler) had his ribs broken. All were more or less injured. The capstan went overboard. The old boom swung on and on, and, passing Spencer's bay, broke and went to pieces on the shore. The logs were with great difficulty regathered, but were finally brought to the outlet of the lake July 4th, the last raft of the season.
After river driving in the spring of 1835, I went to the Penobscot river and found employment at twenty dollars a month at East Great Works, building a dam. John Mills, our superintendent, was a good man. ”

“ From those high, cold levels, the warmth of day and the frosts that gnawed in chill darkness started intermittent slides rumbling, growling as they slipped swiftly down steep slopes, to end with a crash at the bottom of the hill or in the depths of a gorge. But the valley itself suffered no extremes of weather. The river did not freeze. It fell to a low level, but not so low that Hollister ever failed to shift his cedar bolts from chute mouth to mill. There was seldom so much snow that his [Pg 204] crew could not work. There was growing an appreciable hole in the heart of his timber limit. ”

“ It was the intention of Captain Irwin to call at Vasse; and he also contemplated a visit to the Murray River, for the purpose of inspecting that outport, but a foul wind frustrated these purposes.
A river called the Donnelly, fresh at the mouth, and having ten feet of water at the bar, is said to have been seen by Mr. Preston, falling into the sea, about thirty miles east of Augusta. If this be the case (which I doubt) it differs very much from every other known river in this climate; to counteract the force of the salt water at the mouth, it must have a powerful stream. ”

“ This stream is certainly in the summer season, or in the long absence of rain, nothing more than a mere chain of ponds, serving as a channel to convey the waters from the eastward over this low tract. It is certain that no waters join this river from its source to this point; and passing, as it does, for the most part, through a line of country so low as to be frequently overflowed, and to an extent north and south perfectly unknown. but certainly at this place exceeding forty miles, it must cause the country to remain for ever uninhabitable, and useless for all the purposes of civilized man. ”

“ The surface going down into Hudson bay after reaching the Wolstenholme country is fairly swampy. The rivers have thrown up banks, and it is only at an occasional place that a break through those banks occurred to let out the drainage. In many places the river banks are from five to ten feet higher than the surrounding country, and in consequence the land beyond is drowned more or less, very often extending back for a distance as far as one can walk in a day. ”

“ Holden purchased the forceps and became the chief "tooth- puller" of the settlement. West of the junction, the route descends into Deep River Valley with its thousands of acres of diked land tilled by Finnish fishermen and dairy farmers. At 98.9 m. is a junction with a dirt road. Right on this road which runs on top of a dike. A narrow area of sloughs and swamps stretch L. to heavily wooded hills. Deep River, a silent, slow- moving stream, where logs from near-by camps are rafted, separates the road from stretches of wet pasture land. ”

“ The great flood of 1877 rose two feet six inches above the bank of the Salween at Shoaygoon, or to a level twenty feet above the ground in the interior; but owing to the breadth of the valley and the slope of the country, the flood-water passed off in a stream a mile in breadth and about ten feet deep.
Leaving the valley, we proceeded over laterite ground, amongst small trees and scrub-jungle. Before reaching the Hlineboay river we had been pretty nearly jolted to death by our abominable driver, the worst and most apathetic of his kind I have ever suffered from. ”

“ Beyond this stream, the ranges on the north side of the river form steep, high, rocky banks, rising abruptly from the water, and frequently attaining an altitude of several hundred feet above the river; the back country being very hilly, densely wooded, and intersected by narrow ravines, and brushy hollows, containing rugged water-courses. A few miles higher up the river a razor-backed range, covered to the summit with a dense brush of lofty trees, rises to an altitude of 3000 feet above the level of the sea, on the north bank of the river ”

“ The northeast corner stake should stand not a great way back from the river bank.
He had to find a certain particularly described cedar tree, thence make his way south to a low cliff, at one extreme of which he should find a rock cairn with a squared post in its center. From that he could run his boundary lines with a pocket compass, until he located the three remaining corners.
Hollister found cedars enough, but none that pointed the way to a low cliff and a rock cairn. He ranged here and there, and at last went up the hillside which rose here so steeply as to be stiff climbing. ”

“ Re-equipping, he again set out and succeeded in crossing the ranges near the source of the Greenstone River, proceeding along the Hollyford to Martin’s Bay. The creeks and river beaches in that locality were carefully prospected and one of the tributaries of the Hollyford he named Pyke’s Creek, in honour of Vincent Pyke, then Warden and Goldfields Secretary, who was later a member of the House of Representatives. ”

“ Holton. “That was one purpose for coming up here, you [Pg 223] know. And the chances are that we’ll find an abundance of fauna in those remote forests. I’m all for it.”
“Fine,” burst out Professor Bigelow. “Then we’ll go at once. But first,” he hesitated, “we’ll have to decide who will go and who will stay with the boats.”
“Why not take the boats with us?” suggested Joe. “The stream that Bob and I followed to the river is deep, even if it isn’t wide. I think we can easily paddle through.” ”

“ The river itself continues undiminished, and is a fine stream, with nothing to impede the navigation; its windings, however, are very considerable. The banks appear lower by nearly three feet than yesterday: there are still no marks of flood rising upon the land above a foot on either side: the depth of the stream is from twenty to twenty-four feet, breadth from sixty to one hundred and sixty, and its current is about a mile and a half per hour. The river has fallen yesterday and to-day nearly eighteen inches. ”

“ Average cost per mile, $40,000.
"It would accomplish another object. The improvement of navigation on the Mississippi river by a system of reservoirs on its tributaries would be most effectually accomplished by holding [Pg 682] one or two feet of extra head upon each of the thirteen dams proposed, thus storing up during the spring freshets vastly more water than can be held in the small reservoirs on the tributaries of the St. Croix. There are no very large natural reservoirs in the Upper St. Croix valley. ”

“ To pass the drift, which is always difficult and dangerous except when the stream is exceptionally low, marks on the rocks have to be consulted. The road does not run direct across the river, but makes a wide bend; it descends to the river bed from the level of the surrounding veldt by a very steep and narrow cutting. There are huge boulders in the stream, hidden in its turbid waters, which render the crossing particularly awkward for waggons. ”

“ He said: “You couldn’t expect many morals or much stiddy behavior round a river Spree.”
But I don’t spoze the name made a mite of difference. The water seemed to run along as smooth and placid as Dove Creek, that bathes the streets of Loontown at home. Indeed, the waters of the Spree runs along real slow and quiet. And I spoze the inhabitants there are about on a equality with the dwellers in other cities in the old and new world. Human nater is a good deal the same wherever you find it. ”

“ Crooks informed them that he crossed from the Des Plaines into Lake Michigan without taking his canoe out of the water. The deep cut in the Illinois and Michigan Canal, recently excavated by the city of Chicago in order to improve its sewer drainage, is quite uniform at its upper surface, and is sixteen to eighteen feet deep for a distance of twenty-six miles. The bottom of this cut is six [Pg 38] feet below the lowest water-mark ever noted in the lake. At the point where the deep cut reaches the Des Plaines, it is ten feet lower than the bottom of 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. ”