Trinity River

“ 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. ”

“ We made our way down to the bank of the river, which appeared to be broad and deep, and thickly shaded on both sides by trees. Knowing that all the rivers in Trinidad abound with fish, we regretted that we had neither spears, nor rods and lines, with which we might: easily have caught an ample supply. ”

“ The shores vibrate and tremble beneath the force of the impetuous flood, as it whirls round cedar-crowned islands and opposing rocks, and hurries on to pour its tribute into the Rice Lake, to swell the calm, majestic grandeur of the Trent, till its waters are lost in the beautiful bay of Quinté, and finally merged in the blue ocean of Ontario.
The most renowned of our English rivers dwindle into little muddy rills when compared with the sublimity of the Canadian waters. No language can adequately express the solemn grandeur of her lake and river scenery ”

“ The woods abound with the finest kind of untouched timber; the land is fertile in the extreme; and the rivers, streams, and lakes abound with fish. In short, had the Trent Canal been finished, instead of the miserable and decaying timber-slides, which now encumber that noble river, another million of inhabitants would, in ten years more, have filled up the forests, which are now only penetrated by the Indian or the seeker after timber. ”

“ The spot chosen as the terminus of the Atlantic cable, with the views around it—both on the water and on land—is thus described by a correspondent:
"All who have visited Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, with one consent allow it to be one of the most beautiful sheets of water they ever set eyes upon. Its color is very peculiar—an inexpressible mingling of the pure blue ocean with the deep evergreen woodlands and the serene blue sky. Its extreme length is about eighty miles, its breadth about thirty miles, opening boldly into the Atlantic on the northern side of the island. ”

“ My old experience had taught me never, if possible, to be far from a stream while wandering over Trinidad. To toil among these arid rocks produces an insatiable thirst, and one's strength fails if one is deprived of water even for a short time. Therefore as we saw below us a ravine that looked like a water-course and which bore some resemblance to the one I was in search of, we decided to explore it. We lowered ourselves down from rock to rock for some way, and soon, to our delight, found a small issue of cool water. ”

“ It is but an inlet from the great arm of the sea known as Trinity Bay, which is sixty or seventy miles long, and twenty miles broad. On the beach is a small village of some sixty houses, most of which are the humble dwellings of those hardy men who vex the northern seas with their fisheries. The place was never heard of outside of Newfoundland till 1864, when Mr. Field, sailing up Trinity Bay in the surveying steamer Margaretta Stevenson, Captain Orlebar, R. N., in search of a place for the landing of the ocean cable, fixed upon this secluded spot. ”

“ We must push forward the development of our rivers for power, irrigation, navigation, and flood control. We should apply the lessons of our Tennessee Valley experience to our other great river basins. ”

“ They stood towards it, and discovered a considerable island, which the admiral called Trinidad, a name it still retains, and near it the mouth of a river, rolling towards the ocean such a vast body of water, and rushing into it with such impetuous force, that when it meets the tide, which on that coast rises to an uncommon height, their meeting occasions an extraordinary and dangerous swell of the waves.
In this conflict, the irresistable torrent of the river so far prevails, that it freshens the ocean many leagues with its flood. ”

“ The Trent is said to exhibit at spring tides the phenomenon called the “bore” or “eagre,” when, at the first rise after low, the tidal wave, forcing its way up the contracted channel of the river from the broad expanse of the estuary, advances as a rolling mass of water, causing no little disturbance to the smaller craft which it meets in its course. A handsome stone bridge of three arches, with a balustraded parapet, spans the river at Gainsborough, and affords a good view both of it and of the town. ”

“ It is not only in forming and extending the coast of Trinidad, that the Orinoco exerts its powerful agency; co-operating with its mighty sister flood, the Amazons, it has manifestly formed all that line of coast and vast extent of country, included between the extreme branches of each river. ”

“ After the pious manner of the time, having left San Blas on Trinity Sunday, they named their haven Trinidad. Their arrival was six days before the battle of Bunker Hill.
It is about forty-five miles from Cape Mendocino to Trinidad. The bold, mountainous hills, though they often reach the ocean, are somewhat depressed between these points. Halfway between them lies Humboldt Bay, a capacious harbor with a tidal area of twenty-eight miles. It is the best and almost the only harbor from San Francisco to Puget Sound. It is fourteen miles long, in shape like an elongated human ear. ”

“ Striking at all times, it is never so remarkable as when that river is in flood. Formerly this was a common event, but the inundations were mitigated by the removal, in the year 1871, of the old Trent Bridge, with its narrow arches, and the erection in its stead of the present handsome structure, which gives a more ready passage to the swollen waters. Still, it is not a rare occurrence to see the whole valley, as far as the eye can reach, converted into one huge lake. The roads in many places are submerged; the railway embankments barely overtop the waters ”

“ The great difficulty on the Trent, in its present condition, is the want of sufficient depth of water in dry seasons; in wet seasons traffic is impeded by floods. The river Trent is a fine river and a most important part of the main route connecting the Midland waterway system and the town and colliery district of Nottingham with each other and with the estuary of the Humber. It appears, for want of necessary works of improvement, to be in an inefficient state for these purposes. ”

“ Trinidad and Kingston seem likely to benefit most from the traffic to and from Cristobal, the new Atlantic terminal of the canal. Both are splendidly equipped by Nature to act as coaling and repairing stations as well as centres for the distribution of goods. Kingston has a superb harbour, and so also has Port of Spain (the capital of Trinidad) in the Gulf of Paria, a natural landlocked harbour in which the fleets of the whole world could lie in safety—and, it is important to add, outside the hurricane zone. Trinidad lies right athwart the mouths of the Orinoco River. ”

“ The scenery along the shores of the bay is exceedingly beautiful all the way from Kingston to the head, where a large river, the Trent, discharges itself into it at a thriving village, of about a thousand inhabitants, called Trent Port. A summer ride along the lower portion of this river presents scenery of a bolder and grander character than is often met with in Upper Canada, and it is enlivened by spectacles of immense rafts of timber descending the rapids, and by the merry chorus of the light-hearted lumbermen, as they pursue their toilsome and perilous voyage to Quebec. ”

“ Every stream has its own water-shed system, and this system is the real boundary of its basin. If we trace this [148] basin to its very limits on the highlands, we may find, not a mile away, the beginnings of another river, which shall flow in just the contrary direction, as for example in the case of the Rhine and Rhone, the Volga and the Dwina. The sources of the Missouri and of the Columbia lie close together, not a quarter of an hour’s walk apart; yet the waters of one flow into the Atlantic, of the other into the Pacific, and their mouths are almost 2500 miles apart. ”

“ We went out past an old bridge to the northeast of the town (scarcely a half mile out) and found to my astonishment that the stream it once spanned—the Tippecanoe, if you please—and that once drained Centre and 324Pike Lakes, was now no more. There was only a new stone culvert here, not the old iron and plank wagon bridge of my day—and no water underneath it at all, only a seepy muck, overgrown with marsh grass!! The whole river, a clear sandy-bottomed stream, was now gone—due to the recession of the lake, I suppose. ”

“ And yet no more romantic revelations of river scenery exist than those traversed by the Derwent from its source among the dusky moorland heights of the Peak to its junction with the Trent, sixty-three miles from its mountain home, after collecting the waters of 300,000 acres of country. Other streams there are, of course, of greater magnitude, with mountain surroundings more stupendous; but beauty is not to be measured by bulk, or rivers by their breadth and volume, nor is the artistic charm of hills ascertainable by an aneroid. ”

“ Canoes ascending the Mamoré from Trinidad do not have to return by the river Ybari, as there is a lagoon, about a league from the town, from which a creek, or “curiche,” gives egress to the principal river, which above Trinidad still preserves a bold and wide course, with free facilities for navigation, and has many plantations and sugar estates on its banks.
The first night we bivouacked on the Mamoré, a short distance only above the junction of the creek just mentioned, and on the 20th we made good progress, as the light canoes, or “montarias,” travel rapidly. ”

“ The general course of the river during the day was very little to the south of east, its banks still maintaining the same rocky and precipitous character, marks of inundation being frequently observed at the height of thirty feet above the present stream, which now was only running gently in a channel not more than thirty yards wide, but when in flood occupying the whole of the valley, which averages a quarter of a mile in width. The larger pools are lined with flags and reeds, and contain numbers of small fish resembling trout, similar to those found in the Lyons and Gascoyne Rivers. ”

“ But the little derelict Trinidad, in latitude 20 degrees 30 minutes south, and longitude 29 degrees 22 minutes west, seven hundred miles from the coast of Brazil, is but a spot upon the ocean. On most maps it is not even a spot. Except by birds, turtles, and hideous land-crabs, it is uninhabited; and against the advances of man its shores are fortified with cruel ridges of coral, jagged limestone rocks, and a tremendous towering surf which, even in a dead calm, beats many feet high against the coast. ”

“ They are as vital to our commerce and industry as any matter now dealt with by the State, affecting our material well-being, and they are every year increasing in extent and importance. As regards the principal rivers—the Mersey, the Tyne, the Tees, the Clyde, and the Wear especially—they are now controlled in accordance with the recommendation made by the Duke of Richmond’s Select Committee, that “each catchment area should be placed under a single body of conservators, who should be responsible for maintaining the river, from its source to its outfall, in an efficient state.” ”

“ Those who cannot travel facing the engine change places with those who cannot sit with their backs in the direction in which they are going. By the time these changes are effected the narrow East Draeth river expands into a wide sheet of water if the tide is up, or into a series of mud flats when the tide is low. ”

“ Probably more than a hundred affluents of various capacities, deriving their waters from the amphitheater of snow-clad mountains which rise on all sides from 3000 to 4000 feet above its surface, contribute their quota to supply this Lake. The largest of these affluents is the Upper Truckee River, which falls into its southern extremity.
The only outlet to the Lake is the Truckee River, which carries the surplus waters from a point on its northwestern shore out through a magnificent mountain gorge, thence northeast, through the arid plains of Nevada, into Pyramid Lake. ”

“ Indians have been hauling rock all winter for the dam. The canal, when completed, will be ten or fifteen miles long and will irrigate about 5,000 acres of the Milk river valley lands south of the river. These lands will grow excellent crops of grain and hay.
“A new enterprise that will be commenced this summer (1899) is a big reservoir on Warm Springs creek in the Little Rockies. This reservoir will cover 160 acres of land and will have an average depth of eighteen feet. It is designed to furnish a supply of water for irrigating purposes in the southern part of the reservation. ”

“ Triana is always the first quarter to be flooded and the last to be cleared when the river overflows, for the sewer outfalls are below the flood-level, and it seems impossible to close them against the weight of the flood water—moreover, when they are closed, the rain has no outlet and pools in the streets. ”

“ It is intended, no doubt, to complete the navigation of this splendid river by and by, and thus holders of land are not very anxious to sell at a cheap rate; and as the Board of Works has constructed, at an expenditure of upwards of twenty thousand pounds, timber slides, along all the worst rapids by which the lumber is taken to the mouth of the Trent, a certain importance is now attained for this river which did not before exist ”