Schuylkill River

“ The defendants are proceeding to build the bridge under the authority of an act of the legislature of Pennsylvania. The Schuylkill River is entirely within her limits, and is 'an ancient river and common highway of the State.' For many years it has been navigable for masted vessels for the distance of about seven and a half miles only, from its mouth. At Market Street, about five hundred feet above Chestnut, there is a permanent bridge without a draw over the same river, and no higher above the water than it is intended to elevate the bridge about to be built. ”

“ The distant range of hills beyond the river Schuylkill was bound with a faint haze, a frail transparency whose lucid purple barely veiled the valleys. From the motionless trees the long clean shadows swept over tangles of 13 underbrush brightened by the purple coronets of asters, feathery plumes of goldenrod, and the burning glory of the scarlet sumac. Ranks of silken thistles blown to seed disputed possession of the roadside with lowly poke-bushes laden with Tyrian fruit. ”

“ The Little Schuylkill River here falls into the larger stream, and a branch follows it northward to Tamaqua, while the main line goes westward to Pottsville. The summit of the Blue Ridge is the eastern boundary of the coal-fields, and the country beyond is wild and broken. The next great Allegheny ridge extending across the country is the Broad Mountain beyond Pottsville, though between it and the Blue Ridge there are several smaller ridges, one being Sharp Mountain. ”

“ The dam has also rendered the upper part of the Schuylkill navigable, and in order to unite the upper with the lower part of the river, a canal with a lock to it, has been opened along the western side of the dam.
A high square pyramidal tower attracted our attention; it is a shot-tower, one hundred and sixty-six feet high. The melted lead, which is thrown through a tin box, whose apertures are suited to the size of shot wanting, falls from the whole height into water; while falling it forms itself into shot and becomes cold as it falls in the water. ”

“ The country is generally black from the coal, and the narrow and crooked Schuylkill has its waters begrimed by the masses of 190 culm and refuse from the mines. Schuylkill Haven, ninety miles from Philadelphia, is where the coal trains are made up, and branches diverge to the mines in various directions. Three miles beyond is Pottsville, confined within a deep valley among the mountains, its buildings spreading up their steep sides, for here the malodorous and blackened little river breaks through Sharp Mountain. ”

“ The proprietors are a company who have built commodious wharves on each side of the river, both for protection to the abutments of the bridge, and for the use of the city. [1]
[Pg 28]
{12} The Schuylkill is a fine river nearly two hundred yards broad at the bridge. It rises in the Cushetunk mountains about a hundred and twenty miles to the N. W. of Philadelphia. ”

“ The minimum flow of the Schuylkill is 378 cubic feet per second; the Delaware, 2,000 cubic feet; the Merrimack, 2,100 cubic feet; and the Thames River, 700 cubic feet.
Investigations of the influence on our climate, by the removal of the forests, develop the fact that streams, utilized for water-power, have become less constant in their flow than formerly. The Ohio River has of late years exhibited greater fluctuations of levels than ever known, and has lost its prestige as a reliable channel of navigation. Prof. ”

“ The history of the Susquehanna, the Juniata, or the Schuylkill, is too involved with complex changes, if not enshrouded in mystery, to become intelligible to any but advanced students; only the simplest cases of river development can be introduced into the narrow limits of ordinary instruction. ”

“ It is an English term, and no doubt the name was suggested by Rowland, of London, the manufacturer of Macassar hair oil, as a puff for his establishment.
THE SCHUYLKILL BOATS.—These boats have commenced their delightful trips on the Schuylkill. There is no pleasanter way of spending a couple of hours on a hot day than to take a trip up this beautiful river as far as Manayunk. Strangers should not neglect it; our citizens hardly need urging. ”

“ Thence it passes, south-westernly, "a sweet smiling stream sleeping on the green sward," into more undulating land, until it reaches the Chesnut ridge, from which it progresses, at times indolently, and at times with an impetuous current, through a narrow valley, hedged in on either side by high hills, steep and craggy cliffs and precipitous mountains, until it strikes the Schuylkill, about a mile above the falls. ”

“ Mr. Schuyler proposed that a new steel-and-concrete head-gate be put in near Pilot Knob, where a solid rock foundation could be secured; that the four miles of silted channel be re-excavated and enlarged by a powerful steam dredge specially built for the purpose; and that the whole low-water flow of the river be then turned through this head-gate into the enlarged canal and thence into the Alamo barranca west of the break. By this means the settlers would be continuously supplied with water, while the crevasse-opening would be left dry enough to close with a permanent levee or dam. ”

“ The provisional system of ancient consequent drainage, illustrated on fig. 21, does appear to be sufficiently related to the streams of to-day to warrant the belief that most of our rivers took their first courses between the primitive folds of our mountains, and that from that distant time to the present the changes they have suffered are due to their own interaction—to their own mutual adjustment more than to any other cause. The Susquehanna, Schuylkill, Lehigh and Delaware are compound, composite and highly complex rivers, of repeated mature adjustment. ”

“ For the manner in which, after entering the defile of the Nisqually, Sluiskin again took the lead and proceeded in a direct and unhesitating course, securing every advantage of the ground, availing himself of the wide, rocky bars along the river, crossing and recrossing the milky flood which rushed along with terrific swiftness and fury, and occasionally forcing his way through the thick timber and underbrush in order to cut off wide bends of the river, and at length leaving it and striking boldly through the forest to Bear Prairie, proved him familiar with every foot of the country. ”

“ She possesses many natural advantages of position. She is not in a slough, like Chicago, being built on a gravelly plain about one hundred feet above the lake. Nor is she subject to inundation, like Cincinnati, most of her business sites and residences being far above the water. The Cuyahoga River sometimes, however, does damage to the manufacturing establishments along its shores. In February, 1883, a freshet occurred, which raised the river ten feet above its ordinary level, and flooded all its valley. Enormous quantities of lumber and shingles were washed from the lumber yards. ”

“ They are formed by the deposit of particles of soil brought down into the main river by its tributaries, or by occasional streams created by the melting of the snow, or heavy rains. A shoal is first formed, which, as it accumulates, rises gradually above the ordinary surface, while the stream itself, if it flows like the Connecticut through a soft soil, is continually deepening its bed, and leaving these newly-formed banks out of the reach of accidental floods. ”

“ Threshing up against the current, the gunboats and stern-wheelers one after another entered the gorge. The Nile, which below is nearly a mile across, narrows to a bare 200 yards. The pace of the stream becomes more swift. Great swirls and eddies disturb its surface. High on either side rise black, broken, and precipitous cliffs, looking like piles of gigantic stones. Through and among them the flood-river pours with a loud roaring, breaking into foam and rapids wherever the submerged rocks are near the surface. Between the barren heights and the water is a strip of green bushes and grass. ”

“ Stultz Rock, on the opposite side of the stream, was a terror to raftsmen, their craft often being whirled to destruction at this treacherous location.
The Hawk's Bill boldly exposes itself to view, the point being known for many years as Signal Peak.
The Sugar Bowl, Inkstand, and Lone Rock stand amid the swirling waters of the stream, boldly battling with the forces of erosion. They are hard cores which have been left as the river cut its way to the present level. ”

“ This is one of the most beautiful and most instructive examples of consequent drainage—that is, of streams whose direction has been determined by the inclination of the surface over which they flow—thus far discovered. Still another feature of much geographical interest is furnished by the rivers on the adjacent plain, two of which, branches of the Cheyenne River, cross the north and south extensions, respectively, of the Black Hills dome. ”

“ Its abutments, spillway, power house, flood gates, and fish ways are easily accessible from the highway. South of the dam, tourists are warned against falling rocks, for the bluffs (L) consist of cracked stone. At 16.4 m. a bridge crosses Moses Coulee Creek. Only during the early springtime is there any water in the creek, and then it becomes a turbulent stream. East of TRINIDAD, 24 m. (900 alt., 210 pop.) , State 10 winds up-grade from the Columbia River. The quality of the land improves, scattered orchards and farms appear. ”

“ For lack of a reservoir system to withhold and control the flow of water, the river falls from flood-tide--seventy-one feet--to points so low as to seriously impede or prevent navigation. Sometimes even the smallest steamers and barges fail to pass between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, and coal famines have not been unfrequent, resulting from difficult navigation. An equable flow of this stream is impossible. It will always be subject to these extremes. ”

“ They were walking up and down the new dam, which curved across a bend in the sandy reach, waiting for her husband who with Afzul and his gang of bandits was busy seeing to a strengthening of the side nearest the river. A red sun was setting over the jagged purple shadow of the Suleiman Hills, and flaring on the still pools of water below the embankment.
"I am driving you away," she said despondently. "You cannot even look after your own business because of me." ”

“ Very well, they should have it.
Though the dam was practically wrecked, the main canal was intact. Its intake was just above the dam, solidly built of masonry, with sluice gates to control the volume of water. Without the dam it carried a comparatively small stream. With the dam, and the consequent raising of the water level, it would roar full from wall to wall, a river in itself.
Just at its lower lip Farwell began to drive piles at an angle upstream. ”

“ The north branch, 350 miles long, rises in Schuyler Lake in central New York; the west branch, 250 miles long, in the Alleghany Mountains. The two unite at Northumberland, Pa., and the river flows south to Harrisburg, southeast into Maryland and, after a further course of 150 miles, into the northern end of Chesapeake Bay. It is a shallow stream, much broken by rapids. In the spring immense quantities of lumber are floated down. ”

“ But the injured hills, like all old and strong children of nature, curse their destroyer as they die. The railroads have killed the trees, and the death of the trees is as surely killing the river. Year by year its life-blood decreases; it grows narrower, shallower, yet more fitfully dangerous. Scores and hundreds of miles it runs, drinking in the volume of the streams; but in all this distance its own volume does not increase.
Marvellous and shocking! The Susquehanna is no deeper at Harrisburg than at Towanda. Its evaporation equals its growth. The shorn hills can hold no moisture. ”

“ Thence the vast stream sweeps boldly into the south, and with a rush discharges down the rapids, and straight over the line of precipice, in a vast tumultuous greyish-drab torrent which speedily emerges into comparatively still water below. The rock here is an exceedingly hard, mottled limestone, resembling the stone at St. Andrew's Rapids on Red River. Where exposed it is pitted or bitten into by the endless action of wind and water, and lies in thick layers, forming an irregular dyke all along the shore, over the surface of which passes the portage, some forty yards in length. ”

“ These barges are laden chiefly with lumber, but some have coal, grain, and ore.
We enter the narrow mouth of the Sault Ste. Marie River, commonly called by the Americans the "Soo." This river is the outlet between the waters of Lake Huron and Lake Superior. There is a fall of forty-two feet. It is a broad and muddy river, and on the right hand we have American soil, and on the left Canadian. Perched on the bridge in the crisp morning air, the views are very pretty. The mountains, as always, are covered with the dark blue-green of the familiar pines. ”

“ In the evening we again walked abroad; and, having followed the windings of the creek to its junction with the Schuylkill, we seated ourselves 175upon the mouldering trunk of a gigantic, fallen button-wood tree. The bank of the stream was here about twenty feet in height, and descended perpendicularly to the water, which was very deep. ”

“ If I find that the dirt there is rich enough, I shall build, across the river near Quesnelle Lake, a dam strong enough to hold back for three or six months of the year—during the dry season, in other words—the water of the lake, so that the volume which passes through the river channel will be greatly diminished. ”

“ He was sanguine of its ultimate use for fuel, and while the Philadelphians drove from the city the person that offered to sell it, believing he offered stone for coal, he invented and used in his own residence a stove for burning it. The canal of the Schuylkill navigation company, one of the first in the United States, was partially constructed by him, and the Fairmount water-works and dam at Philadelphia were erected in accordance with his plans. In 1819 he removed to Conowingo, Md., where he built a bridge and double saw-mill, and prepared the timber for many bridges. ”