River Great Ouse

“ Having its origin on the slopes of the Cam mountain, in the north-west of the county, it traverses, in the sixty or seventy miles of its course to the Ouse, almost every description of the scenery for which this great division of England is famous. Over moorland and meadowland, rushing madly down precipitous rocks and flowing placidly along fertile plains, shut up in some parts within deep gorges and at other points spreading out to river-like dimensions, it has an ever-varying charm to all who trace its progress. ”

“ The great width of the valley of the Ouse, which is sometimes 2 miles, has not been expressed in the diagram. It may have been shaped out by the joint action of the river and the tides when this part of England was emerging from the waters of the glacial sea, the boulder clay being first cut through, and then an equal thickness of underlying Oolite. After this denudation, which may have accompanied the emergence of the land, the country was inhabited by the primitive people who fashioned the flint tools. ”

“ Other British Rivers.—The next longest river to northward is the Great Ouse, navigable from the west for ninety miles to Bedford; then we come to the group of rivers which water the long plain of York, and unite in the estuary of the Humber, including the Trent from the south, navigable one hundred and five miles to Burton; the Yorkshire Ouse, navigable forty-five miles to the city of York, with its main tributary the Derwent. Farther north are the Tees and Wear, and the busy Tyne. Passing into Scotland, we reach the Tweed, valuable for its fisheries, but unnavigable ”

“ The country drained by the Little Ouse seems at one time to have been almost covered by Glacial deposits, including beds of shingle, composed for the greater part of quartzite pebbles. The beds at Brandon Down are nearer the sea than any analogous beds towards the source of the stream, and occupy a higher position relatively to the existing river, being 90 feet above it. If they resulted from river-action, they would, in accordance with the hypothesis, be among the oldest of the river- deposits ”

“ In the Ouse the tide rises and falls, so it is necessary to stop the mouths of the great drains going into it, which is done by a structure of timber or brick-work like the gates of a dock, which close at high tides to keep out the sea-water, and open at low tides to let out the land water. Either from insufficient workmanship or bad locality, or unusual pressure, or from burrowing animals, the land water, or sea water, or both, made a flank movement, and burst up the whole sluice, so that the tide, instead of being confined to the river, obtained free way up the drain also. ”

“ A north-easterly direction is then resumed past St Neot's to Godmanchester and Huntingdon, when the river trends easterly to St Ives. Hitherto the Ouse has watered an open fertile valley, and there are many beautiful wooded reaches between Bedford and St Ives, while the river abounds in coarse fish. Below St Ives the river debouches suddenly upon the Fens; its fall from this point to the mouth, a distance of 55 m. by the old course, is little more than 20 ft. (the extensive system of artificial drainage cuts connected with the river is considered under Fens) . ”

“ The Ouse, the next, going westward, to cut through the Downs, is a very much larger stream. It breaks through the here narrow but lofty chalk range some five miles from the sea at Lewes, and then winds through the meadows as a tidal river{214} to Newhaven—a stretch of country familiar enough to every one using this route to the Continent. The cleft in the Downs made by the Ouse below the ancient and picturesque town of Lewes is one of the boldest and most precipitous scenes of its kind in the whole chalk system. ”

“ The Great Ouse is not of the bigness it once boasted, in days before the Old and New Bedford Rivers were cut, two hundred and sixty years ago, to carry its sluggish waters away by a direct route to the sea, and the fair-weather pilgrim marvels at the bridge and at the great banks he sees stretching away along its course to protect the surrounding lands from being flooded. That they are needed is evident enough from the care taken to repair them, and from a sight of the men digging hard by in the greasy gault to obtain the repairing materials. ”

“ The river Ouse meanders through a wide, fertile flat, or what the Scotch would call a strath, which gently rises on each side into pleasantly undulating uplands. Parks, groves, copses, and hedge-row trees are interspersed very happily, and meadow, pasture, and grain-fields seen through them, with villages, hamlets, farm-houses, and isolated cottages, make up a landscape that grows more and more interesting as you contemplate it. ”

“ Several small rivers, whose banks are very high, and nearly perpendicular, intersect this part of the country, and render travelling an undertaking of difficult and dangerous performance. Horses, in ascending and descending these steep banks, frequently fall, and are sometimes dashed to pieces, in spite of the best exertions of their drivers. From the head of Lake Ontario to the Grand River Ouse, the river takes a western direction, and thence to the township of Woodhouse its inclination is southern, but from Woodhouse to Port Talbot it preserves a south-western course. ”

“ Today the city of Owosso has 15,000 residents, and is more beautiful than it was in the days of old. Looking out of the studio windows of a wonderful writing castle which lies along the banks of the waters of the Shiawassee river, there can be seen one place that shall never be shed of the willows that wave so gently in the breeze. It is the little island in the very center of the river which flows through Owosso in a great sweeping bend. ”

“ This embankment kept back, to the west and to the east, the tide-water of the Well Stream (see p. 399) , a wide inlet of the sea, narrowing southward till it reached its extremity at Wisbech, and forming the estuary for the united outfall of all the Fenland waterways. In later days operations connected with the draining of the fens have diverted nearly the whole (p. 424) volume of the Great Ouse and its tributary streams to fall into the sea at King's Lynn, and have led the Nene straight to Wisbech. ”

“ There is not a stream upon the continent which, for the same distance, rolls onward so calmly, and smoothly, and peacefully as the Ohio. Danger rarely visits its tranquil bosom, except from the storms of heaven or the reckless folly of man, and hardly a river in the world can vie with it in safety, utility, or beauty. Though subject to rapid and great elevations and depressions, its current is generally uniform, never furious. The forest-trees which skirt its banks are the largest in North America, while the variety is endless ”

“ The slopes rise softly from the river-plain, now projecting, now retreating, as the valley winds from side to side. A gentle ascent brings us from the banks of the Ouse up to the highest part of the ground in the vicinity, and places before our eyes a wide sweep of rich agricultural country, with peeps of village spires and gleams of the winding river. ”

“ Indeed, as Harry freed her from her moorings, she fairly seemed to bound out into the river with the keen enjoyment of a creature alive in every part. It is hard to picture that East River as it looked a hundred years ago, with wooded and grass-grown banks in place of wharves and warehouses, and with only an occasional sail, where to-day the great, unwieldy ferry-boats plow from shore to shore, and an army of smaller craft steam noisily hither and thither. ”

“ The course of the Cormorant was shifted slightly, and by the muddy color of the water Payne knew they were entering the river proper. The stream here was perhaps two hundred yards across and over the stern, to port and starboard, the banks were plainly visible. The land was low, so low that it seemed but a little higher than the water level, but it bore an amazingly abundant growth. The river seemed to flow through a channel cut in the dense, solid vegetation. Great cypress trees towered up from the water, enormously thick at the roots and rapidly dwindling above. ”

“ There are rivers whose currents, running red with the silt and mud of their soft alluvial shores, carry far into the ocean the record of their muddy progress; but this glorious river system, through its many lakes and various names, is ever the same crystal current, flowing pure from the fountain-head of Lake Superior. Great cities stud its shores; but they are powerless to dim the transparency of its waters. Steam-ships cover the broad bosom of its lakes and estuaries; but they change not the beauty of the water, no more than the fleets of the world mark the waves of the ocean. ”

“ Thus it happens that whilst big affluents from the north bring rushing streams of much silt-stained water to the great river, no such affluents exist on the south. The waters of the Elburz streams are all lost in the Oxus plain ere they reach the river. Nevertheless there are abundant evidences of the former existence of a vast irrigation system drawn from the Oxus. The same lines of level mounds which break the horizon of the plains of Babylon are to be seen here, and they denote the same thing. ”

“ As the traveler ascends or descends the Ohio, he cannot help remarking that alternately, nearly the whole length of the river, the margin, on one side, is bounded by lofty hills and a rolling surface, while on the other, extensive plains of the richest alluvial land are seen as far as the eye can command the view. Islands of varied size and form rise here and there from the bosom of the water, and the winding course of the stream frequently brings you to places where the idea of being on a river of great length changes to that of floating on a lake of moderate extent. ”

“ River life at once underwent a great change with the gradual supremacy of the steamboat in the carrying trade of the Ohio and its tributaries. The sounding whistle blew away from our valleys much that was picturesque—those strenuous days when a well developed muscle was the best capital with which to begin business. Of course the flat-boat did not pass from our waters, but as a type of old-time rivermen their lusty crews have disappeared. ”

“ On the other hand, if you row, and by so doing happen to be in the middle of the river on approaching an island, there is great danger of being thrown on the upper point of it before you are aware, or have time to regain the current. In case you get aground in such a situation, become entangled among the aquatic timber, which is generally abundant, or are driven by the force of the water among the tops or trunks of other trees, you may consider yourself in imminent danger ”

“ So they marched through beech trees, with the gorge deepening until the river flowed, a frothing rapid, five hundred feet below them. Of all the changeful things in this world of change, the courses of rivers in deep valleys change least. It was the river Wey, the river we know to-day, and they marched over the very spots where nowadays stand little Guildford and Godalming—the first human beings to come into the land. Once a grey ape chattered and vanished, and all along the cliff edge, vast and even, ran the spoor of the great cave bear. ”

“ How the returning tide used to sweep through that to us fathomless gulch! It made the old river seem ever so much more wonderful, and ever so much more filled with adventure.
Many a time, just to dare it, I would dive into the very cauldron, and let the swirling current carry me to the grassy sward beyond—along which I would run till the narrowing channel permitted my crossing to the Great Cop again. I would be drying myself in the sunshine as I went, and all ready for my scanty garments when I reached my clothing once more. ”

“ Although the district of Ouva is at present well populated, and every hollow is taken advantage of for the cultivation of paddy, still the demand for water in proportion to the supply is comparatively small.
The system of irrigation has necessarily involved immense labor. For many miles the water is conducted from the mountains through dense forests, across ravines, round the steep sides of opposing hills, now leaping into a lower valley into a reservoir, from which it is again led through this arduous country until it at length reaches the land which it is destined to render fertile. ”

“ The affluents of the Seine below Paris are the Oise, its principal tributary, which has its birth in the distant Ardennes in Belgium; the Epte, a “pure water” stream which flows through a charming valley, from Forges-les-Eaux to Giverny near Vernon; the Andelle, less important, but a wonderfully picturesque little river, which joins the parent stream near Pont de l’Arche. ”

“ Here at Compiègne the vigour of the Oise ends. Above it is a weakly, purling stream, the greater part of the traffic going by the Canal Lateral, while below it broadens out into a workable, industrial sort of a waterway which is doing its best to contribute its share to the prosperity of France.
We learn here, as elsewhere, where it has been attempted, that the hand of man cannot irretrievably make or reclaim the course of a river. Deprived of its natural bed and windings, it will always form new ones of its own making in conformity to the law of nature. ”