Boom (river)

“ While these thoughts were spinning through the boy's brain, he was casting loose the cable at both ends and stowing it in his own little dugout that was moored to the outer side of the raft. Then with strong deep strokes he paddled swiftly upstream towards the broken boom. After fifteen minutes of hard work he had secured one end of the cable to that part of the boom resting against the snag, carried the other to and around a tree on the bank, back again to the boom, and then to the inshore end of the broken chain. ”

“ Then the boats are put through the sluice. Sometimes, when the dam is high, some of the river-drivers go through in the boats—a dangerous practice, this; for often the bateaux have gone under water, entirely out of 218 sight, to come up below the falls, and more than once have lives been lost in this foolhardy feat.
THROUGH THE SLUICE.—A DANGEROUS PRACTICE THIS.
A boom generally passes from three to six dams, and sometimes takes four months to reach the mills. ”

“ A boom of logs was chained across the river at a narrow gorge. This held back for two nights and a day the heavy cultch floating down stream, and piled up a good deal of water, too, for the boom soon became a regular dam. Below the dam thus made the level of the stream dropped perceptibly.
"I am going to put Wonota in her canoe into the stream above the boom," Hooley explained. "When the boom is cut the whole mass will shoot down ahead of the girl. But the effect, as it comes past the spot where the cameras are being cranked, will be as though Wonota was in the very midst of the freshet. ”

“ In the sense of a barrier, a boom is generally formed of timber lashed together, or of chains, built across the mouth of a river or harbour as a means of defence. Possibly from the metaphor of a breaking boom, and the accompanying rush and roar, or from the rush of rising waters (mingled with the onomatopoeic use) , “boom” began in America to be used of a sudden “spurt” or access of industrial activity, as in the phrase “a boom in cotton.” Hence the verb “to boom,” meaning to advertise or push into public favour. ”

“ The most dangerous part of the work is “sluicing” the logs. When the boom reaches the run which connects the lake or river with the dam through the sluice of which the logs must pass, the chain of guard-logs is detached, and fastened in lines along both sides of the run, and the rafts are drawn off to one side and anchored to trees. The river-drivers, armed with their pick-poles, are then stationed along the run, on the dam, wherever they may be needed. ”

“ The logs, floating down the pond, were thus concentrated toward the sluice. Also, the rivermen, walking back and forth the length of the booms, were able easily to keep the drive moving.
Now, however, Orde unchained these boom logs. The men pushed them ashore. There as many as could find room on either side the boom-poles clamped in their peavies, and, using these implements as handles, carried the booms some distance back into the woods. Then everybody tramped back and forth, round and about, to confuse the trail. Orde was like a mischievous boy at a school prank. ”

“ A beaten ledge responds like a mighty gong with a humming roar that is strangely disproportionate to the means employed to produce the sound. Sometimes to stamp with the foot over a rounded surface of earth-covered granite is to produce an answering, drumlike boom that makes one suspect that he stands on a thin film of rock over a cavern. The music of a fall has many parts. One of these is the sand-dance sibilation of the shuffling waters, another this boom of the rock drum - 70 - on which the green flood beats with padded blows. ”

“ While our vessels hauled up their courses, and swung round with their heads to the wind, the fireship, favoured by the obscurity which concealed her, and by a north-east wind, with all her sails and studding-sails set, ran right towards the boom, which closed the narrow Strait; for the promontory on which the town stands closes in the extremity of the outer harbour, and divides it from the inner fiörd. The boom itself was an enormous log of Memel timber, to which a number of masts, yards, and spars were lashed. ”

“ A half-dozen men with peavies rolled a white-pine log of about a foot and a half diameter into the clear water, where it lay rocking back and forth three or four feet from the boom piles. Suddenly a man ran the length of the boom, leaped easily into the air, and landed with both feet square on one end of the floating log. That end disappeared in an ankle-deep swirl of white foam, the other rose suddenly, the whole timber, projected forward by the shock, drove headlong to the middle of the little pond. ”

“ When the water begins to increase, it comes on with a prodigious noise as if it were an earthquake. In its first great approach it makes three great waves. The first wave washes over the bark from stem to stem: The second is not so strong; at the third they raise the anchor and resume their voyage up the river, rowing with such swiftness that they seem to fly for the space of six hours, while the flood lasts. ”

“ Then come the wood-cutters in the spring, and lop off the branches, and roll the great logs down to the torrent below, and float them away in long flexible rafts, which spin down the smooth water-ways at a giddy speed, or float silently along the broad, still reaches of the widening river, or dash over the dangerous rapids, skillfully guided by the wild raftsmen, bare-legged and armed with long poles, whose practiced feet support them as safely on the slippery, rolling timber as ours would carry us on the smoothest pavement. ”

“ We passed through the opening in the magnificent breakwater which shelters the roadstead at Portland, and soon afterwards began to feel the heave of the Channel. Our tube-boat rushed along over the crests of the waves with a very easy and steady motion, but the Emerald started rolling; and as we drew farther off the land, and got more into the influence of the rough water, this rolling motion became so violent that her boom had to be topped up pretty high to prevent it from dipping and dragging in the water every time she rolled to leeward. ”

“ A stout rope, one end of which is made fast to the boom at the same distance from the mast as the reef cringle to which it belongs. It ascends, passes through the cringle, descends and passes through a sheave on the side of the boom, then in board, and is stopped to the boom by means of its lanyard, or small line spliced into its end for the purpose. ”

“ A very delicate evolution, and one which should only be resorted to in light summer winds, is jibing. It consists in letting the boat go off slowly from the wind, and while so doing hauling the boom amidships until the wind, blowing from directly aft, takes the mainsail on the other tack. In performing this the main-sheet must have plenty of play, as the boom often whips round with considerable force. ”

“ When under way drop the sail so that the desired reef-points are about in a line with the boom, and when they are in the right position let the boat [Pg 893] come up into the wind so that the boom will be inboard. Then order the crew to spread along the boom, and when the bow-man has fastened the desired cringle at the jaws of the boom, have them catch hold of the sail, stretch it along the boom, the sheet-tender making fast the cringle on the leach (outer edge) to the boom. ”

“ But an approximate idea of it may be obtained from the fact that while the velocity is so great, that the eye with difficulty follows objects floating on the surface, yet such is its volume at the lowest stage of the river, that it rises and bends like a sea of molten glass over a channel of immense rocks, without breaking its surface, except near the shores, so deep and vast is the mighty flood! ”

“ Though filled with water, the boats all rode successfully and came out below crowned with success. Often a rapid is greatly augmented by enormous boulders which have been washed into the river from some side canyon, and, acting like a dam, block the water up and cause it to roar and fret tenfold more. Black and dismal is this granite gorge; sharp and terrible the rapids, whose sheeted foam becomes fairly iridescent by contrast. ”

“ No good boat will capsize unless the sails are confined by the sheets. The position of the boom trims the mainsail, and this is done by the action of the main-sheet, the boom being regulated in accordance with the direction of the wind, and the condition of the sea. ”

“ By and bye, the avalanches come drifting down, tumbling, crashing, and whirling along, with the foaming waves boiling up wherever they can find a crevice; and trunks of trees, fragments of buildings, and ruins of bridges, are driven along with the tumultuous mass.—A single night will sometimes clear the river of the main portion of the ice, and then the darkly-tinted waters will roll rapidly on, as though wildly rejoicing at their deliverance from bondage. ”

“ There are no rocks at the base of the fall. The sheet of foam plunges almost vertically into a dark, beryl-green,{237} lake-like expanse of the river. Immense volumes of foam roll up from the cataract-base, and, whirling about in the eddying winds, rise often a thousand feet in the air. When the wind blows down the cañon a gray mist obscures the river for half a mile; and when, as is usually the case in the afternoon, the breezes blow eastward, the foam-cloud curls over the brink of the fall, and hangs like a veil over the upper river. ”

“ Cast off the heel-lashing and rig your boom out to the mark, slue the boom with the block up and make fast round the yard. (The easiest way of passing the boom-lashing is to take it over the yard and put a bight up between the head-rope and yard; then take the end back over the yard and boom and through the bight, and haul taut. This may be done twice, if necessary, and then hitch it round all parts, between the boom and the yard.) The boom being rigged out and fast, take the end of your tack down into the top and hitch it to the forward shroud. ”

“ But follow me quickly—let us lose no time in endeavoring to reach the security of a wider strand."
As they proceeded, the roaring and rumbling grew louder and louder; they knew it was the voice of a torrent, and it was with beating hearts they wound round a bend in the course of the greatly narrowed river, and saw at a short distance before them a majestic cataract, pouring its foaming waters into the river, which bounded and dashed onward like a troubled sea, even to the spot where the wanderers stood, transfixed with wonder and admiration at the spectacle. ”

“ Several times I have been forced to make my bed on one of the black rocks amid-stream, for the violent rocking of the boat in the rapids made sleep an impossibility. A stranger sleeping-place can scarcely be imagined. The ground on which one lies seems to tremble before the assaults of the flood; the roaring and bellowing, hissing and splashing, rumbling and thundering of the waves drowns every other sound; one sits or lies on a rug with his comrades without uttering a word. Every blast of wind drives the spray like a fleeting mist across the rock island. ”

“ We came upon the boom with a horrid crash; he put the helm down, and laid her broadside to it. The force of the tide acting on the hull, and the wind upon the foresail, made her heel gunwale to, and it was with difficulty I could keep my legs; at this moment, the boat was very near being swamped alongside. They had shifted her astern, and there the tide had almost lifted her over the boom; by great exertion they got her clear, and lay upon their oars: the tide and the wind formed a bubbling short sea, which almost buried her. ”

“ The river, which a short way above the falls is broad and placid, becomes suddenly contracted between high and rocky banks, overhung with trees of immense growth, and rushes along a descent of several feet with prodigious impetuosity, until the interruption of a ridge of rocks, close to the edge of the grand falls, changes the turbulent stream into one vast sheet of broken foam, thundering over a precipice, fifty feet in perpendicular height, into a deep vortex filled with huge rocks, amongst which the immense body of waters is for a moment partially lost. ”

“ How the rafters ring as I write with songs and mirth, while the pitch-pine logs blaze and crackle in the chimney, and the fine snow-dust drives in through the chinks and forms mimic snow-wreaths on the floor, and the wind raves and howls and plays among the creaking pine branches and snaps them short off, and the lightning plays round the blasted top of Long's Peak, and the hardy hunters divert themselves with the thought that when I go to bed I must turn out and face the storm! ”

“ A mooring is fixed in the middle of the stream, from which a long chain or rope, suspended by small boats at convenient distances, extends to the passage-boat, which swings from bank to bank, at the end of this long rope, exactly like the pendulum of a clock, only it is horizontal, not perpendicular. There is no occasion for oar or sail. The helm of the passage-boat being turned to port or starboard, the stream of the river acting on it, swings the tail of the pendulum, with its load of passengers, from one bank to the other in a few minutes. ”

“ Looking from where we were a person could get but a very imperfect knowledge of the tragic scene on the other side of the river, but those who escaped said that as their boat was being swept along down the rapids it was caught by one of those currents which, whirling in its course like a cyclone in the air, increased in velocity as the radius of the circle diminishes, until, with a roaring noise, it seems to sink, forming an open funnel-schaped vacuum in the water to the bottom of the river, often called a whirlpool. ”