York River

“ The left rested at Yorktown, which was fortified by continuous earthworks, strong water and land batteries, and rifle-trenches reaching to the right, connecting with those behind the Warwick. Yorktown is on the right bank of York River, which narrows at that point, with Gloucester Point on the opposite bank. ”

“ There were many visitors in York on this forenoon; people from roundabout who had Tory inclinations, or who were ready to sell to the enemies of their country such of vegetables or farm produce as might bring them in a few shillings. A number from Gloucester who had been allowed to come across the river, and I even saw two lads whom I knew lived on Mobjack bay, roaming around with mouths wide open in astonishment at this vast encampment wherein, to their uneducated eyes, were soldiers enough to over-run all our colonies. ”

“ 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 bed of this river is one hundred to one hundred and fifty paces wide almost throughout, though at its mouth it is somewhat narrower: its borders are decorated with beautiful pines through which we can walk with ease; as in fact fifty of our men have done a foot by land nearly twenty leagues of the way from the mouth of the river to the Sault, which is so called, though it is not properly a waterfall but only an impetuous rapid full of rocks, that arrest it course and render the navigation almost impossible for three quarters of a league. ”

“ York is a small village on the south side of the river which bears that name, where the long peninsula between the York and the James, is only eight miles wide. In this broad and bold river, a ship of the line may ride in safety. Its southern banks are high, and, on the opposite shore, is Gloucester Point, a piece of land projecting deep into the river, and narrowing it, at that place, to the space of one mile. Both these posts were occupied by Lord Cornwallis. [Pg 398] The communication between them was commanded by his batteries, and by some ships of war which lay under his guns. ”

“ The whole of the marsh to the East, once deep and clear water, is," he asserts, "the work of the Don, and in the Bay of York, where now its destructive mouths are turned, vegetation shews itself in almost every direction, prognosticating" as he speaks, "the approaching conversion of this beautiful sheet of water into another marshy delta of the Don." Fothergill, too, in an address to the Electors of the County of Durham, in 1826, indulges in a fling at the river which pays its tribute to the Harbour of York. ”

“ In the upper portions of the dales—even in the narrow river-side pastures—the fences are of stone, turned a very dark colour by exposure, and everywhere on the slopes of the hills a wide network of these enclosures can be seen traversing even the most precipitous ascents. Where the dales widen out towards the fat plains of the Vale of York, quickset hedges intermingle with the gaunt stone, and as one gets further eastwards the green hedge becomes triumphant. ”

“ The remote sources of the Hudson River are in Hamilton and Essex Counties, in the Adirondacks, in northeastern New York State, the highest at four thousand feet elevation above the sea, the head streams being outlets for a large number of highland lakes. The river flows over three hundred miles to the sea, and has few tributaries, the largest being the Hoosac and the Mohawk. Its lower course is a long tidal estuary, the tidal head being at Troy, from whence the fall in level to the ocean is only about five feet. ”

“ The North River is better than two miles over to Powles Hook, which is a strong work opposite to New York, but is exposed to the driving of the ice in winter, whereby ships are prevented from lying therein during that season of the year. The land on the North River side is high and bold, but on the East River it gradually descends in a beautiful declivity to the water's edge.... ”

“ This extends northward into the Hudson River, westward into Newark Bay, and has the tidal strait of East River leading north to Long Island Sound, on the eastern side of Manhattan. Within the bays and rivers around New York there are over a hundred miles of available anchorage ground, and the Government is now making a channel to the sea through Sandy Hook bar, forty feet deep at low water. ”

“ It will prove more historic to follow the writer, who says, “that the coast of New York and the neighboring district were known to Europeans almost a century before Hudson ascended the ‘Great River of the North,’ and that this knowledge is proved by various maps made in the course of the sixteenth century. Nearly all of them place the mouth of a river between the fortieth and forty-first degrees of latitude, or what should be this latitude, but which imperfect instruments have placed farther north.”—Nar. ”

“ As has been stated in the preceding pages, the drainage of the lake-basin apparently flowed for ages by New York; and it is an interesting fact that the great tide of population and business which has set in from the Eastern States toward the interior has chiefly passed through the gap cut in the highlands by the old river whose course we have endeavored to trace. ”

“ There you will find the Hudson River, and follow it up north from the city of New York, past Albany, the capital of the state, until it ends in a region of mountains. Near its upper waters is a long, narrow lake named Lake George, which is full of beautiful islands. ”

“ The petition of the lord mayor and commonalty of the ancient city of York, in opposition to the bill, sets forth, "that the said city has chiefly its support and advantage by the River Ouze and water of Humber, which is a passage for ships and boats from York to Hull, and divers parts of this realm; and that by letters patent, 10th Edward IV. (1471) the said petitioners were appointed conservators of the River Ayre from the River Ouze to Knottingley Mill Dam; and have all along exercised their power accordingly ”

“ In a MS. map of this portion of the vicinity of York, dated 1811, the road over the float is marked "Road from York to the Lighthouse." In this map, the lesser Don does not appear. A pond or inlet represents it, stretching in from the bay to the river. A bridge spans the inlet. There is a bridge also over the ravine, through which flows the rivulet by the Parliament Buildings. ”

“ The house is served with water by pipes into a Cistern into ye Garden, Cellars and all offices. This was the ffinest house I saw in Yorkshire. We returned to Knarsborough 9 mile and from thence we went to York againe 12 mile, this was ye worst Rideing in Yorkshire, then we passed thro’ York town by another gate towards Hull, and yt Streete was Larger and better buildings than what I saw before in Yorke, and here we pass over the muddy River, Called the muddy Ffosse. ”

“ It is a really remarkable stream in making its debut without the slightest fuss, for it is large enough at its very birth to be called a small river. Its modesty is a great loss to Yorkshire, for if, instead of gathering strength in the hidden places in the limestone fells, it were to keep to more rational methods, it would flow to the edge of the Cover, and there precipitate itself in majestic fashion into a great pool below. ”

“ And even as this old guide-book boasts of the, to us, insignificant Liverpool of fifty years ago, the New York guidebooks are now vaunting of the magnitude of a town, whose future inhabitants, multitudinous as the pebbles on the beach, and girdled in with high walls and towers, flanking endless avenues of opulence and taste, will regard all our Broadways and Bowerys as but the paltry nucleus to their Nineveh. From far up the Hudson, beyond Harlem River, where the young saplings are now growing, that will overarch their lordly mansions with broad boughs, centuries old; ”

“ A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure. It offers a necessity of life that must be rationed among those who have power over it. ”

“ This incomparable hue appears wherever deep shadow is interposed between the eye and any intense, shining white. The floe in question contained two caverns excavated by the sea, both of which were partially open toward the ship. And out of these shone, shone on us, the cerulean and sapphire glory! Beyond this were the deep blue waters of York Bay; farther away, grouped and pushing down, headland behind headland, into the bay, rose the purple gneiss hills, broad and rounded, and flecked with party-colored moss ”

“ The pedestrian from the town, by a half-hour's easy walk, can here place himself in the midst of a forest solitude; and from what he sees he can form an idea of the whole surrounding region, as it was when York was first laid out. Here he can find in abundance, to this day, specimens, gigantic and minute, of the vegetation of the ancient woods. Here at the proper seasons he can still hear the blue jay; the flute notes of the solitary wood-thrush, and at night, specially when the moon is shining bright, the whip-poor-will, hurriedly and in a high key, syllabling forth its own name. ”

“ To the southward of Cape Prince of Wales, the coast trends to the east and assumes a totally different character to that which leads to Schismareft Inlet, being bounded by steep rocky cliffs and broken by deep valleys, while the other is low and swampy ground. To a bold promontory, which advances into the sea beyond this, the name of York was given; to the eastward of which is a low spot of land projecting about ten miles from the coast, forming a right angle, and having a channel about two miles wide between its extremity and the northern shore, which is the entrance to Port Clarence. ”

“ The islands and the swampy margins form secure breeding-places for the countless water-fowl, and the lake abounds with pike, perch, eel, and roach.
It was the excellent supply of fish yielded by Hornsea Mere that led to a hot discussion between the neighbouring Abbey of Meaux and St. Mary's Abbey at York. In the year 1260 William, eleventh Abbot of Meaux, laid claim to fishing rights in the southern half of the lake, only to find his brother Abbot of York determined to resist the claim. ”

“ The two arms of the pier enclose a small harbour, one of the few places of refuge for vessels caught by easterly gales on the Yorkshire coast—a coast deficient in good and easily-accessible harbours. A chalybeate spring bursts from the cliff on the northern side; and near the middle of the port an artesian well throws up a constant stream, varying with the rise and fall of the tide. The noisy brook which you cross, on entering the principal street, has its sources in those remarkable springs which, known as ‘the Gipseys,’ gush out from the foot of the wolds. ”

“ These nearer hills, which include High Seat and the Lady’s Pillar, form the watershed of this part of the Yorkshire border; for on the western slopes are to be found the sources of the river Eden that flows through the beautiful valley, which is one of the greatest charms of the Midland route to Scotland.
If one stays in this mountainous region, there are new and exciting walks available for every day. ”

“ We have too long accepted the roof of a railway station as our first view of such places. It is not an inspiring view. But to see York Minster from afar, shining under the evening sky and lifted high above the city; to watch it growing larger and larger, rising higher and higher, increasing in beauty every moment, until at last one drives slowly into its huge shadow ”

“ THE OUSE. The Ure and the Swale—Myton and the “White Battle”—Nun Monkton, Overton, and Skelton—The Nidd—York—Bishopthorpe—Selby—The Derwent—The Aire—Howden—Goole—The Don.
The Yorkshire Ouse (from the Celtic “uisg” or water) has one decided peculiarity among important British rivers: it has no natural beginning, and it loses its identity before its waters touch the sea. ”

“ You can distinguish the hollow sound of the waters as they fall over ledges into deep pools, and you can watch the silvery gleams of broken water between the old stone bridge and the dark shade of the woods. The masses of trees clothing the side of the gorge add a note of mystery to the picture by swallowing up the river in their heavy shade, for, owing to its sinuous course among the cliffs, one can see only a short piece of water beyond the bridge. ”

“ Come what might, Brother Jucundus felt he must have a fling. He should die without it. Just one jolification in the twelvemonth, and then he would put up for the rest of the year with beans and cabbage, small beer and matins before dawn.
York fair approached. York fair! of all that is ravishing! The shows of dancing dogs, the whirli-go-rounds, the giantesses and dwarfs, the "spice" stalls, the drinking-booths! To York fair he must, he would go, if condemned to a bean and a thimbleful of water for fasting dinner ever after. ”

“ The route used for so many years by the Hudson Bay Company to transport their goods into the interior from York Factory is utterly unfit for navigation, as we understand that word, as the rivers are full of wild, dangerous rapids and falls. ”