Humboldt River

“ Most of our streams stay at home. Rather than run away to be tossed about and lost in the sea, they go down into the ground or up into the air.
HUMBOLDT RIVER.
The Humboldt River rises in the northwestern corner of Utah, passes into the northeastern corner of Nevada, in Elko County, and thence through Eureka, Lander, and Humboldt Counties, to its terminus in its lake and sink, just across the line in Churchill County. 18 The total length of the river is nearly 350 miles, while its width is only about thirty or forty feet, and its average depth less than eighteen inches. ”

“ In seasons when the water is low in the Humboldt River, there is much less danger of the alkali, as the running water in the river then comes from pure mountain springs, and is confined to the channel ”

“ People accustomed to the monster mile-wide Mississippi, grow accustomed to associating the term “river” with a high degree of watery grandeur. Consequently, such people feel rather disappointed when they stand on the shores of the Humboldt or the Carson and find that a “river” in Nevada is a sickly rivulet which is just the counterpart of the Erie canal in all respects save that the canal is twice as long and four times as deep. One of the pleasantest and most invigorating exercises one can contrive is to run and jump across the Humboldt river till he is overheated, and then drink it dry. ”

“ It will probably eventually become extinct, or survive as a mud marsh. In the spring, when the snow is melting about the head-waters of the river, Humboldt Lake has a length of about fifteen miles and a width of nine or ten miles. In summer and toward fall it becomes much smaller. At the south end of this lake is an outlet into a sink, or shallow lake, twenty-five or thirty miles long by about fifteen wide. This sink at times of high water 19 connects with a similar sink formed by the overflow from Carson Lake, the terminal basin of the Carson River. ”

“ Certainly the inventor never expected it to be used for a vaulting-pole in leaping across streams. Twenty-five miles east of Battle Mountain the valley of the Humboldt widens into a plain of some size, through which the river meanders with many a horseshoe curve, and maps out the pot-hooks and hangers of our childhood days in mazy profusion. Amid these innumerable curves and counter-curves, clumps of willows and tall blue-joint reeds grow thickly, and afford shelter to thousands of pelicans, that here make their homes far from the disturbing presence of man. ”

“ In the forenoon we traveled over a barren plain, ten miles in extent, when we found a spring. Traveled seven miles in the afternoon and intersected a tributary of Mary’s River, or Humboldt River, and camped.
Sunday, September 2.
We did not move our camp today. Grass good. All in good health.
Monday, September 3.
Traveled down the Humboldt valley 11 miles in the forenoon and dined on the river, which at this point is a small stream of clear water.
The valley is broad with a fertile soil which produces a good quality of grass. At this time it is parched with drouth. ”

“ Facts like these are vital in the consideration of the future of the Amazon basin and especially its habitability. It was the dream of Humboldt that great cities should arise in the midst of the tropical forests of the Amazon and that the whole lowland plain of that river basin should become the home of happy millions. Humboldt’s vision may have been correct, though a hundred years have brought us but little nearer its realization. Now, as in the past four centuries, man finds his hands too feeble to control the great elemental forces which have shaped history. ”

“ Twenty miles east of Winnemucca the river arid railroad pass through the ca¤on in a low range of mountains, while my route lies over the summit. It is a steep trundle up the fountains, but from the summit a broad view of the surrounding country is obtained. The Humboldt River is not a beautiful stream, and for the greater part of its length it meanders through alternate stretches of dreary sage-brush plain and low sand-hills, at long intervals passing through a ca¤on in some barren mountain chain. ”

“ In this remote and solitary spot I can say that I heard for the first and almost the only time the uproar of life at sunset, which Humboldt describes as having witnessed towards the sources of the Orinoco, but which is unknown on the banks of the larger rivers. The noises of animals began just as the sun sank behind the trees after a sweltering afternoon, leaving the sky above of the intensest shade of blue. Two flocks of howling monkeys, one close to our canoe, the other about a furlong distant, filled the echoing forests with their dismal roaring. ”

“ To the southward of this, bordering the base of the Sierra Nevada, within the Basin, is a long range of lakes; while many copious rivers disperse their water throughout its ungenial expanse. The chief of these streams is Humboldt River, which rises in the mountains west of the Great Salt Lake, and runs westwardly along the northern side of the Basin towards the Sierra Nevada of California. It courses onward for three hundred miles, without affluents, through a sterile plain, though the valley of its own creation is richly covered with grasses and bordered with willows and cottonwood. ”

“ On gaining the summit, a wide prospect of the surrounding country astonishes the beholder. From the foaming bed of the river rise hills richly crowned with woods, while beyond its western bank the eye rests on the boundless Savannah of the Meta. On the horizon loom like threatening clouds the mountains of Uniama. Such is the distant view; but immediately around all is desolate and contracted. In the deep ravines of the valley moves no living thing save where the vulture and the whirring goat-sucker wing their lonely way, their heavy shadows gleaming fitfully past the barren rock. ”

“ Humboldt, who measured it at San Fernando in the month of May, when it had receded to its lowest ebb, found it to be two hundred and thirty-six toises broad; higher up it is considerably wider, gradually diminishing as it approaches its great confluent. Alluding to this singular phenomenon, mostly caused by evaporation and infiltrations through the dry, sandy banks of the river, the same eminent traveller elucidates some curious facts worthy of notice. ”

“ Crossed a sand ridge about two miles, and travelled down the bottom about four miles, where we found some grass and camped. Our horses are failing fast. Kit Carson says truly that the Humboldt is the burying ground for horses and oxen. We pass daily great numbers of dead stock at the camping grounds, in the sloughs, and in the river. The river is nothing but horse broth, seasoned with alkali & salt. The appearance of emigrants has sadly changed since we started. ”

“ We traveled 24 miles down the river and crossed Feather River and camped on the southern bank.
We are now very near Feather River mines, which we were told we could reach in 180 miles from the forks of the roads on the Humboldt at Winnemucca. Instead, as per my account, which I believe is very nearly correct, the distance is 514 miles as we have traveled it.
We left the Humboldt River, September 14, and reached here October 17, being 33 days on the “Greenhorn’s Cutoff,” as it is now commonly known. Probably nearly one-half of the immigrants came by this route. ”

“ The Sink of the Humboldt is a lake of strong, brackish water, where the river empties into the natural basin, formed by the slant of the surrounding district of mountains, plain and desert, and where some of the water sinks into the ground and much of it evaporates, there being no surface outlet. ”

“ In a region of red clay and sand, where all the streams have nearly the colour of arterial [Pg 80] blood, it is not surprising that several rivers should have received the same name; nor is it surprising that so accurate a topographer as the Baron Humboldt, having learned that a Red river rises forty or fifty miles east of Santa Fé, and runs to the east, should conjecture it might be the source of the Red river of Natchitoches. ”

“ In the Raudal of Canucari the rocky dike or weir consists of piled-up granite spheres. We crept into the interior of a grotto the damp walls of which were covered with confervæ and shining Byssus, and where the river rushed high above our heads with deafening noise.
We had accidentally more time than we desired for the enjoyment of this grand scene of nature. The Indians had left us in the middle of the cataract, proposing to take the canoe round a long narrow island below which we were to re-embark. ”

“ During a seventy-four days’ almost uninterrupted river navigation of 1520 miles up the Orinoco, to the neighbourhood of its sources, and along the Cassiquiare, and the Rio Negro—during the whole of which time we were confined to a narrow canoe—the same spectacle presented itself to our view at many different points, and, I may add, always with renewed excitement. There came to drink, bathe, or fish, groups of creatures belonging to the most opposite species of animals ”

“ They are met with on lands which exhibit extensive level plains, where nothing occurs to obstruct their passage and alter their direction. Thus, along the immense low tract drained by the Amazon an easterly wind prevails, by the assistance of which, the voyager is enabled to ascend rapidly against the strong current of the river. This wind blows from the estuary of the Amazon, where it is moderate, to its sources at the foot of the Andes, where it has gathered such strength, that Humboldt found it difficult to make head against it. ”

“ By this river, a communication exists with the Orinoco, by means of a remarkable stream, the Cassaquiare, which seems to have been formed for the sole purpose of connecting these two majestic rivers, and the future dwellers upon them, in the bonds of perpetual union. Humboldt, the great traveller and philosopher, thus speaks of it, "The Cassaquiare, as broad as the Rhine, and whose course is one hundred and eighty miles in length, will not much longer form in vain a navigable canal between two basins of rivers which have a surface of one hundred and ninety thousand square leagues. ”

“ They credulously named it Trinity, expecting to come to the river later. The next day they proceeded down the narrow sand strip that now bounds the west side of Humboldt Bay, but when they reached the harbor entrance from the ocean they were compelled to retrace their steps and try the east shore. The following day they headed the bay, camping at a beautiful plateau on the edge of the redwood belt, giving a fine view of a noble landlocked harbor and a rich stretch of bottom land reaching to Mad River. ”

“ Doubtless, the time has been when a large portion of western Nevada formed one great lake or inland sea, whereof Pyramid and Mud Lakes, and the sinks respectively of the Carson, Walker and Humboldt rivers, are all that the thirsty earth and air have left us. The forty miles of low, flat, naked desert—in part of heavy, wearying sand—that now separates the sink of the Humboldt from that of the Carson, was evidently long under water, and might, to all human perception, have better remained so. ”

“ In consequence of this, the bottom of the valley is constantly shifting, and there is a tendency to form channels from the main river to its tributaries, such as we have seen to exist between the Solimoens and the Rio Negro,—such as Humboldt mentions between the Hyapura and the Amazons. Indeed, all these rivers are bound together by an extraordinary network of channels, forming a succession of natural highways which will always make artificial roads, to a great degree, unnecessary. ”

“ Even at Buenos Ayres its depth is already so inconsiderable as to impede navigation. The Amazons is the longest of all rivers: its course from its origin in the Lake of Lauricocha to its mouth is 2880 geographical miles. But its breadth in the province of Jaen de Bracamoros, near the cataract of Rentama, as measured by me at the foot of the picturesque mountain of Patachuma, hardly equals that of the Rhine at Mayence.
The Orinoco is narrower at its mouth than either the River Plate or the Amazons ”

“ These black cavities may be traced at elevations of from 160 to 192 feet above the present level of the river on the rocks of Keri, in the islands of the cataracts; in the gneiss-like hills of Cumadanimari, which extend above the island of Tomo; and lastly at the mouth of the Jao. Their existence proves, what indeed we learn from all the river-beds of Europe, that those streams which still excite our admiration by their magnitude, are but inconsiderable remains of the immense masses of water belonging to a former age. ”

“ When startled by the passing canoe, they do not attempt to regain the forest by breaking forcibly through the hedge which has been described, but one has the pleasure of seeing these wild animals stalk leisurely along between the river and the hedge for four or five hundred paces, until they have reached the nearest opening, when they disappear through it. ”

“ The margin of the forest presents a singular spectacle. In front of the almost impenetrable wall of colossal trunks of Cæsalpinia, Cedrela, and Desmanthus, there rises with the greatest regularity on the sandy bank of the river, a low hedge of Sauso, only four feet high; it consists of a small shrub, Hermesia castanifolia, which forms a new genus [68] of the family of Euphorbiaceæ. A few slender, thorny palms, called by the Spaniards Piritu and Corozo (perhaps species of Martinezia or Bactris) stand close alongside ”