Meuse River

“ Crossing the valley of the Meuse we come into a similar region of hills and woods, but this region is, on the whole, much wilder, the hills higher, and the forests more extensive and dense. The hills here, too, form a nearly continuous ridge, running north-north-west. The highlands east of the Meuse sink, as we go north, into the undulating country of Lorraine, but the ridge on the west side of the Meuse extends a good many miles farther. This ridge, with the Meuse flowing along the east side of it and the river Aire flowing along its west side, is the Argonne. ”

“ This town is built on the declivity of a mountain, at the foot of which runs the river Meuse. As we were about to land, there fell a torrent of rain, which, coming down the steep sides of the mountain, swelled the river instantly to such a degree that we had only time to leap out of the boat and run to the top, the flood reaching the very highest street, next to where I was to lodge. ”

“ The Medway, perhaps because it is the relic of some 232 much greater river now drowned by the sinking of the land, perhaps because its tidal estuary lends it twice a day an artificial breadth, gives one the impression of those continental streams, the Seine or the Meuse, which are sufficient to animate a whole country-side, and which run in so wide a basin that a whole province attaches to their name. ”

“ Fragments of this plateau, separated from the main mass by the action of watercourses, are scattered in long ridges over the space included between the line of bluffs and the Meuse: the two hills of Le Mont Homme (295 metres) , the Côte de l'Oie, and, farther to the South, the ridge of Bois Bourrus and Marre. To the east of the river, the country is still more rugged. ”

“ It rises at Ochamps in the Ardennes, and flowing in a north-westerly course reaches the Meuse at Anseremme, a few miles above Dinant. The river is only 49 m. long, but its meandering course may be judged by the fact that it is no more than 29 m. ”

“ As the distribution of birds on the European continent has not been very minutely worked out for English readers, a list of those that I saw may be worth printing in 'The Zoologist.' The valley of the Meuse about Dinant and about as far up the river as Hastière is generally narrow. In places the river is closely hemmed in by high ground, rising sometimes so abruptly as to form towering cliffs inhabited by numerous Jackdaws. At other places the high ground falls back, and leaves space for meadows, a stately château, a farm, or a village. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Why did not Nature so order it that mankind might rest like the trees, or shall we, like them, come forth at last strong, vigorous, beautiful, from that long refreshing slumber?
Leaving the village, at the end of a mile and a half I took the road turning to the left, where Moose River falls into the Androscoggin, at the point where the latter, making a remarkable bend, turns sharply away to the north. Moose River is a true mountain stream, clear and limpid, foaming along a bed of sand and pebbles. ”

“ The confluents of this vast stream are numerous, and each one brings a tribute of the soil through which it has roamed. The Missouri pours out its waters heavily charged with the marl of the Rocky Mountains, the saffron sands of the Yellow Stone, and the chalk of the White River; the Ohio holds in its floods the vegetable mould of the Alleghanies, and the Arkansas and Red Rivers bring in the deep-died alluvion of their banks. Each tributary mingles the spoils of its native hills with the general flood. ”

“ HUMAN REMAINS IN LOESS NEAR MAESTRICHT.
The banks of the Meuse at Maestricht, like those of the Rhine at Bonn and Cologne, are slightly elevated above the level of the alluvial plain. On the right bank of the Meuse, opposite Maestricht, the difference of level is so marked that a bridge with many arches has been constructed to keep up, during the flood season, a communication between the higher parts of the alluvial plain and the hills or bluffs which bound it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Not only in its physical aspect does the Missouri appeal to the imagination. From Three Forks to its mouth—a distance of three thousand miles—this zigzag watercourse is haunted with great memories. Perhaps never before in the history of the world has a river been the thoroughfare of a movement so tremendously epic in its human appeal, so vastly significant in its relation to the development of man. And in the building of the continent Nature fashioned well the scenery for the great human story that was to be enacted here in the fullness of years. ”

“ During its long course from the far away Rockies to its junction with the mighty Mississippi, the Missouri River penetrates every variety of country one can think of. In many places it passes through vast stretches of prairie land, where, as far as the eye can reach, the country is like a billowy sea, being covered with grass. ”

“ The banks of the stream were lined with the villages of the Indians. Their wigwams were of a great variety of structure. The scenes presented were astonishing in their wild and picturesque aspect. Crowds of weird-like savages would often be collected on the bluffs, watching the appalling phenomenon of the passing steamer.
The Missouri is different, perhaps, from any other river in the world. Its boiling, turbid waters rush impetuously on, in an unceasing current, for hundreds of leagues, with scarcely a cove, an eddy, or any resting place where a canoe can be tranquilly moored. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This is the case likewise with the Rhine and the Moselle; the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa. The Upper Mississippi is a transparent stream, but assumes the color of the Missouri upon joining that river, the mud of which is as copious as the water can hold in suspension, and of a white soapy hue. The Ohio brings into it a flood of a greenish color. ”

“ Two hours more passed on, one small moose was killed, and at day-break we were in our cabin fast asleep.
The principal outlet of Moosehead Lake is the Kennebeck, which now “demands my song.” It is the second river in Maine, and one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. Instead of watering a wilderness, as I had supposed, all along its valley, for over a hundred miles, are fertile and extensive farms, with here and there a thriving village, inhabited by an intelligent and industrious people. Its principal tributary is Dead River, and the spot at the junction of the two is called the Forks. ”

“ 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. ”

“ With half-closed throttles, and tyres sufficiently soft to absorb most of the shocks, the young tourists bumped over the pavé, swung round, and soon settled down to a modest fifteen miles an hour along the Namur road.
For the best part of the journey the Meuse, with its limestone crags and dense foliage, was within a few yards on their right, while trees on either side of the road afforded a pleasant shade from the fierce rays of the sun. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It occupies its place, a queer, squat sentry, standing midway between the cattle ford and the newer log wagon-bridge lower down the river toward its mouth, where it joins the giant Missouri some two 10 hundred miles distant. It backs into the brush fringing the wood-lined river bank, and is dangerously sheltered from the two great Indian Reservations on the other side of the river. Dangerously, because it is at all times dangerous to live adjacent to woods when so near such a restless race as the Indians on the Rosebud and the Pine Ridge Reservations. ”

“ The Missouri River would constitute nearly the whole of its western boundary. In the northerly part the Mouse and Pembina Rivers are among its largest streams; in the middle flows the large and finely wooded Shayenne, "whose valley possesses a fertile soil and offers many inducements to its settlement;" while towards the south it would have the Jacques, the Big Sioux, the Vermillion, and the head waters of the St. Peter's. In its supply of copious streams, nature seems there to have been lavish. ”

“ The country, to the northward and westward, is generally low. Moose River is seen making its way through it, and finally emptying into the lake on the opposite side. To the eastward the country is more hilly, until the view is lost among the mountains of the Ktaadn group. On looking down from the edge of the precipice, we see the water directly beneath; and so steep and overhanging is the rock, that by a single leap one might throw himself from almost the highest point, and strike the water six hundred feet below, and many feet distant from the base of the mountain. ”

“ Moose River, which is the principal tributary of the Lake, is a narrow, deep, and picturesque stream, where may be caught the common trout, weighing from one to five pounds.
In this portion of Maine every variety of forest game may be found; but the principal kinds are the gray wolf, the black bear, the deer, and the moose. Winter is the appropriate season for their capture, when they afford a deal of sport to the hunter, and furnish a variety of food to the forest laborers. ”

“ The navigation of the Missouri is thought to be the most hazardous and difficult of any of the Western rivers, owing to its mad, impetuous current, to the innumerable obstructions in its bed, and the incessant variation of its channel.165 Insurance and pilotage [252] upon this river are higher than on others; the season of navigation is briefer, and steamers never pursue their course after dusk. Its vast length and numerous tributaries render it liable, also, to frequent floods, of which three are expected every year. ”

“ Unfitted to some extent for the purposes of commerce by the sand-bar at its mouth, see how this river was devoted from the first to the service of manufactures. Issuing from the iron region of Franconia, and flowing through still uncut forests, by inexhaustible ledges of granite, with Squam, and Winnipiseogee, and Newfound, and Massabesic Lakes for its mill-ponds, it falls over a succession of natural dams, where it has been offering its privileges in vain for ages, until at last the Yankee race came to improve them. ”

“ This was the rush and the roar of the incoming billows of the terrible Missouri, the most tremendous river upon this globe. It enters the Mississippi through a channel half a mile in breadth, rushing down with a sort of maniacal fury, from its sources among the Rocky Mountains at the distance of three thousand and ninety-six miles. ”

“ The present advantage of Great Falls is in the possession of unlimited water-power in the Missouri River.
As to rainfall and climate? The grass shows no lack of rain, and the wheat was raised in 1887 without irrigation. But irrigation from the Missouri and Sun rivers is easy, if needed. The thermometer shows a more temperate and less rigorous climate than Minnesota and north Dakota. Unless everybody fibs, the winters are less severe, and stock ranges and fattens all winter. Less snow falls here than farther east and south, and that which falls does not usually remain long. ”