Mystic River

“ On reaching the summit of the St. Croix, there are found vast plateaux of sand, supporting pine forests; and on descending the Misakoda, or Brulé of Fond du Lac, the sandstone strata of that basin are again encountered. This ascent was rendered arduous, from the low state of the water. I reached Snake River on the 30th, had an interview with the Buffalo chief (Pezhikee) and his subordinates; finding the population 300, with thirty-eight half breeds. The men, while here, cut their feet, treading on the trap-rock debris, in the mouth of the river. ”

“ Nothing, indeed, can be imagined more arduous than this tracking up a swift river, against constant head winds in bad weather. Much of it is in the water, wading up "snies," or tortuous shallow channels, plunging into numberless creeks, clambering up slimy banks, creeping under or passing the line over fallen trees, wading out in the stream to round long spits of sand or boulders, floundering in gumbo slides, tripping, crawling, plunging, and, finally, tottering to the camping-place sweating like horses, and mud to the eyes—but never grumbling. ”

“ It forms two horseshoes and an ox-bow connected, as we see it from our windows; and when the tide is out diminishes to a rivulet about two feet in width. At flood it is more than twice the width of the Wissahickon, and when the high tides of August come its magnitude is surprising.
Then we understand why the hay-ricks (which we wickedly tell our friends from the "Hub" resemble gigantic loaves of Boston brown bread) are on stilts, for, regardless of dikes or boundaries, this tortuous creek spreads over its whole valley, as if in emulation of the greater river of which it is a tributary. ”

“ Anthony’s Falls, may be considered as the termination of this tract. Above this point, although the Mississippi has some rich alluvions, as at the mouth of Sandy Lake River, its vegetation assumes generally an alpine character, and a large portion of the wide area of its valley, is traversed by pine ridges, with innumerable intervening lakes, and extensive tracts of, what the natives denominate, mushkeegs. ”

“ On looking back, below me is spread out the narrow, winding valley, between its two mountains, widening at that point into an extensive bar, through which, on account of the many dams, canals, and other obstructions, the tortured river seems to have infinite difficulty in forcing its way. There is also the collection of tents, and the miners engaged in cooking, and collected in small groups about their camp-fires, for it is a cool morning. There stand the wrecks of our aqueduct and canal; the bare half channel of the river, and the surface of the bar scarred and pitted over. ”

“ For hundreds of miles on both banks of the river—more especially on the right—the bottom lands are scarred and seamed by a labyrinthine network of creeks, bayous, and lagoons, all old channels of the river, which the current in its caprice has long since forsaken, leaving them in deep, dark stagnation, or only moving sluggishly to and fro, during the season of floods. ”

“ The flooded world rose up before the five voyagers, the vast river, still black in the night light, floating trees, perhaps rooted up by the stream from shores thousands of miles to the north and west, the low dim outline of forest to right and left, and all around them an immense desolation. Everything to other minds would have been gigantic, somber, and menacing. ”

“ Pouring its impetuous waters through wild tracks covered with trees of little value except for firewood, it sweeps down whole forests in its course, which disappear in tumultuous confusion, whirled away by the stream now loaded with the masses of soil which nourished their roots, often blocking up and changing for a time the channel of the river, which, as if in anger at its being opposed, inundates and devastates the whole country round ”

“ This point was found one mile above the station of the American Fur Company's trading-house. Here we encountered the first rock stratum, in the shape of our old geological acquaintance, the old red sandstone of Lake Superior. It was succeeded in the first sixteen miles, in the course of which the river is estimated to fall two hundred feet—most of it in the first twenty-nine miles—by trap, argillite, and grauwacke. Through these barriers the water forces its way, producing a series of rapids and falls which the observer often beholds with amazement. ”

“ But assuming, as we think it must be assumed, that the words 'accidental' and 'extraordinary' are to be taken as relating to the river,-that is, as alone embracing conditions not usually there occurring, and not ordinary to the stream in its usual condition, having regard to the flow through its natural bed, whether in high or low water, that view would be here irrelevant, since there is no suggestion of any bed of the river in high or low water except the space between the natural banks along which the levees were built, unless the whole valley be considered as such bed. ”

“ Wrinkles in the earth and in the mountainsides make the first troughs for the streamlets and the rivers, and then the running water itself digs these natural channels deeper. Many rivers begin as streamlets flowing out of springs. The great Mississippi began as a baby, just like the rest of us. You can jump across it still if you go up to its source. Springs not only start rivers in life but go on feeding them. Most large river systems get secret gifts in this way, as they flow along, from thousands of springs that empty into them or their tributaries. ”

“ Those works which are incontestibly defensive usually occupy strong natural positions; and to understand fully their character, their capability for defence, and the nature of their entrenchments, it is necessary to notice briefly the predominant features of the country in which they occur. The valley of the Mississippi river, from the Alleghanies to the ranges of the Rocky Mountains, is a vast sedimentary basin, and owes its general aspect to the powerful agency of water. Its rivers have worn their valleys deep into a vast original plain ”

“ They are taken from the shore by the rushing tide and planted in the channel quite as rapidly as the snag-vessels can extricate them from their dangerous positions.
The Lower Mississippi (always excepting the still more frantic Missouri) is probably the most dangerous and least interesting river in the world to navigate. When not in actual danger, you are likely to be so far removed from it, high and dry on a sand bar, that the annoyance, like a certain period in our national history, has a tendency to try men’s souls. ”

“ The wall of this work is very slight. At the south-west is a graded passage to the lower level of the river bottom.
“Huron river or creek, several branches of which join it at this point, is always fordable; and the bluffs which surround the enclosures are not very difficult of ascent. These works may have been designed for defence,—perhaps they were ‘walled towns;’ but they do not occupy positions of great natural strength. The grounds adjacent to the river are low, and in places swampy: the river evidently once ran at the base of the bluff occupied by the enclosure B.” ”

“ I found among the debris in the abyss, pieces of hornstone, and crystals of calcareous spar, radiated quartz, sulphuret of zinc, and sulphate of lime. Its geology is best explained by observing that the river, in falling over the precipice of the Niagara ridge into the basin of Lake Ontario, leaps over horizontal strata of limestone, slate, and red sandstone. In this respect, nothing can be more simple and plain. It is magnitude alone that makes the cataract sublime. ”

“ We were here within the boundaries of the Mississippi alluvions. No highlands are visible for some distance before reaching Harden's. The river winds through broad, fertile plains, bearing a most vigorous growth of forest trees. The banks are elevated some thirty feet above the water, and, as the stream increases in depth and strength, they become [Pg 133] subject to be undermined by the flood. The cane, which is common to the river in its entire length, even to the highest elevations of the Ozarks, is here of a tall and most vigorous growth. ”

“ In fact, rivers, like mountain torrents, often run for a long distance on the summit of a ridge built up by their own deposits. The delta of the Mississippi is a regular cone, or rather mountain, of dejection, extending far out into the Gulf of Mexico, along the crest of which the river flows, sending off here and there, as it approaches the sea, a system of lateral streams resembling the fan-shaped discharge of a torrent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was alleged that in flood seasons, when the water in the Mississippi river rose above its natural low-water banks, such water would flow out and over the vast basins in which the alluvial valley between Cape Girardeau and the Gulf formed itself, and would then, either by percolation gradually flow back into the river, or be carried over and through the basins by the streams flowing through them into the Gulf of Mexico, where such streams emptied. ”

“ The Mississippi River is a stranger to its own people. It occurred to her that perhaps there had been some great change in the Bottoms; perhaps the lands had sunk again, and perhaps there had been earthquakes, eruptions, caves and upheavals? ”

“ The width of the river above the shoot is 627 yards; below, 209. For the form of the shoot, see a rough draught herewith. [VII-14] In high water the appearance is much more sublime, as the great quantity of water then forms a spray, which in clear weather reflects from some positions the colors of the rainbow, and when the sky is overcast covers the falls in gloom and chaotic majesty.
From the Falls of St. Anthony to Rum river, the Mississippi is almost one continual chain of rapids, with the eddies formed by winding channels. ”

“ Instead of living in constant fear of such a calamity, the people of the Mississippi flood plain have sought safety by making artificial levees, to make floods impossible. These are built upon the natural levees. As the river bed rises by the deposit of mud, [Pg 125] the levees are built higher to contain the rising waters. No longer does the rich soil of the Mississippi flood plain receive layers of sediment from the river's overflow. The river very rarely breaks through a levee. ”

“ It has occurred to me as just possible that such a rapid was wiped out when the power dam was built, the comparatively short distance the water is backed up at that point suggesting that the original fall was very considerable. Again, it is possible that to Captain Marsh, after his many years in the comparatively smooth waters of the Missouri, such riffles as still go slap-banging down along the bluffs opposite Billings would [Pg 208] appear a lot rougher than they would to one just down from the almost continuously white and rock-torn rapids of the upper river. ”

“ There is no use seeking the method of the river, nor endeavouring to discover the processes by which the lives of thousands who go afloat down the Mississippi are woven as woof and warp in the fabric of river life and river mysteries. The more faithful an effort to select one of the commonest and simplest of river complications, the more improbable and fanciful it must seem. ”

“ Six or seven hundred feet would not appear to be an extravagant estimate for the entire fall. The river itself is a perfect torrent; often on looking down its channel, there are wreaths of foam constituting a brilliant vista, overhung with foliage. It would never be used at all, for the purposes of the trade, were it not, that there is much water on the rapids, so that experienced men can conduct loaded canoes both up and down them. The river might appropriately be called Rapid, or Mad River, or almost any thing else, but by its popular name of Brulé. ”

“ Of the valleys of the rivers last enumerated, viz. those north of the Arkansa and tributary to the Mississippi, it is observable that they are uniformly possessed of a rich soil, but owing to the excessive floods occasionally brought down through them from {217} the hills and mountains, their cultivation is very precarious. The valley of White river, and those of some few others, are in many places elevated above the reach of the highest freshets, and are not altogether subject to this inconvenience. ”

“ In another the inhabitants are in danger of being at any time drowned like cats. A railway bridge may suddenly be suspended over dry land, while the river has swept away rails and embankment a little farther off. Our engineers have great difficulty in protecting constructions from the capricious river in spring. Not a year passes without the Mississippi causing terrible destruction and inflicting great loss on those who dwell near its banks, especially in cattle.
"You have only to see this water to comprehend what immense quantities of earth, sand, and mud are yearly carried down by it. ”

“ The river continues to widen as we approach the junction with the Mississippi,—thirty-nine miles below Erie,—and to assume the characteristics of the great river into which it pours its flood. The islands increase in number and in size, some of them being over a mile in length by a quarter of a mile in breadth; the bottoms frequently resolve themselves into wide morasses, thickly studded with great elms, maples, and cotton-woods, among which the spring flood has wrought direful destruction. ”