The World Rivers

St. Johns River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 07:12:00 +0000

The St. Johns River is the longest river in Florida 310 miles long. It's among the few rivers in the United States of America that currents north.

The land region that drains into a water body is named a drainage basin - as well named a watershed The St. Johns River is separated into 3 drainage river basins.

As the river flows in the north, the upper basin is the region to the south that builds its marshy headwaters. The middle basin is the region in central Florida where the river broadens forming lakes Jesup, Harney, George and Monroe. The lower basin is the field in Northeast Florida from Putnam County to the mouth of the river in Duval County.

lower St Johns map

The river's source, or headwaters, is a large boggy region in Indian River County It currents north and turns eastwards at Jacksonville to its mouth in the Atlantic Ocean

The width of the river changes. It is a broad marsh at its headwaters and norms more than 2 miles in width between Jacksonville and Palatka. It extends to form big lakes in central of Florida.

The full drop of the river from its source in deluges south of Melbourne to its mouth in the Atlantic close Jacksonville is less than thirty feet, or approximately one inch per mile, making it among the most lazy rivers in the world.

As the river courses slowly, it is hard to affluent pollutants.

Major pollution sources let in discharges from wastewater discourse plants and abscond from urban and agricultural regions after it rains. This abscond carries pesticides and other pollutants into streams that lead to the river. Pollution is boiled down around urban areas.

Saltwater accedes the river at its mouth in Jacksonville. In the time of low water, surges may cause a blow flow as far south as Lake Monroe - 161 miles upriver from the rivers mouth.

Major affluents, or smaller streams and rivers that current into the St. Johns River include the Ocklawaha River, Econlockhatchee River and the Wekiva River.

The St. Johns basin is in reality an ancient intracoastal lagoon system. Because sea levels dropped barrier islands got an obstacle that forbade water from flowing east to the ocean. Alternatively, the water accumulated in the flat valley and slowly threaded northward for approximately 300 miles. This conceived the St. Johns River.

Bicycling is appropriated on many preservation regions and levees throughout the dominion as shown on the map for each region. Bicycle riders could ride on assigned trails and constituted roads or fire lines, except where confined by marks.

Primitive tent encamping is allowed on District land at assigned sites. Just tent camping is allowed. Ascertain area maps for bivouacs and special limitations. Many of the camping fields are remote and can just be reached by boosting, bicycling, boating or horseback riding. A special-use authorisation perhaps issued by the District for mobility-impaired individuals to use motorized vehicles.

Campers should annotation there are no facilities, restrooms or beverage water at the primitive bivouacs unless differently designated. Campers should apply the designated campfire ring for fires and should accomplish all drivel with them when they depart.

Individual and grouping camping sites are usable at most positions where camping is allowed for; distance of arrest is limited to 7 days for individual and grouping camping.

Individual camping is bounded to four individual bivouacs, with each campsite bounded to six people. Individual camping is on a first-come, first-served base. No fees are asked.

Grouping camping is for groups of 7 or more people. A reservation and a countenance are commanded from the District, and campers must call at least 7 days advanced. No fees are asked.

Dogs, cats or other domesticated animals Dogs, cats or other domesticated animals, barring horses, are allowed on District land offered that they're roped at all times. Domestic animals are allowed loosed on District land if they're specifically authorised by a special-use authorization or District engage.

The District doesn't provide rental facilities, restrooms or shelters unless marked in the description of individual belongingses.

Recent Posts:

The Amazon River
Columbia River
Tigris River

Euphrates River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 06:51:00 +0000

The Euphrates River -or Purattu, as the Babylonians and Assyrians named it- is the longest river of the Near East rivers: it is almost 2,760 kilometres long. Its 2 sources and upper flows are in what was once named Armenia; these rivers, now called Kara Su and Murat Su, unite close ancient Melitene. Here, the Euphrates -full of stones- passed across a range of heights mountains, the western division of which was named Taurus (or Antitaurus) and is famed for Nemrud Dagi, which manages the Euphrates. This was the natural frontier between Cappadocia and Armenia.

In the south of the mountains, the country affords itself. The river enters the area that used to be called Mesopotamia. The northern division is fertile and was commanded by very ancient cities alike Samosata, Edessa, and Harran - the latter 2 deposited on the banks of the Khabur, a affluent of the Euphrates.

At Zeugma, "bridge", the river was baffled by the main road from Assyria by Mesopotamia to Cilicia and Syria. The river is now getting navigable for big ships. Following the threads, merchants could arrive at Babylon. On the Achaemenid period, the east bank was named, in Aramaic, beyhn nahrîn, which is interpreted as Mesopotamia, "between the rivers" (the extra river being the Tigris). The west bank was named eber nâri, "crossways the river", or Syria.

The land between Karchemish and Sippar, the northmost city of Babylonia, is basically a green corridor, around 20-30 km wide, by a desert. At some positions, the river comes through a low ambit of hills (e.g., near the Byzantine fortress named Zenobia).

Passim history, the towns were heavily bastioned. After Sippar, which created bitumen, the Euphrates arrived at Babylon. Further to the west, there was a canal named Pallakattu, which was opened on the river flood. (As the Euphrates encounters its water from the Armenian mounts, it is subject to deluging in May-June, on the harvest.) A 2nd canal, called the Royal River, behaved water to the Tigris and conjoined this river near Opis.

As the water of the Euphrates is relatively salty, there is forever the risk of salination in Babylonia. Even, with the essential care, the alluvial plain can be exceedingly fertile, and it is frequently said that this is trailing the Biblical story of the earthly paradise, the "Garden of Eden", in which the Euphrates is referred.

Nowadays, the rivers Tigris and Euphrates connect some 165 kilometer northwest of the shore of the Persian Gulf; their combined course is the infamous Shatt al-Arab or Arvand Rud that was the reason of the Gulf War between 1980 and 1988.

The Reconstruction Period of the ancient landscape is something of a amaze. Several scholars have arrogated that the shore of the Gulf was often more to the north-west, because Sumerian texts tell that Eridu was closely to the sea; on the other hand, geologists have displayed that the shoreline has not actually advanced or dropped off. Probably, the region was very mucky, and there were big, brackish lakes. This is affirmed by the fact that in Eridu, fish bones have been discovered of a species of bass that doesn't live in a salt climate.

The Euphrates got a favorite mosaic in Christian art, as among the 4 rivers in Paradise; this tessellated is from Theodorias in the Cyrenaica.

Recent Posts:

The Danube River
The Amazon River
Columbia River

Tigris River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 06:48:00 +0000

Our word Tigris arrives from an Old Persian word that can be interpreted as "fast" or "arrow-like". The ancient Sumerians named the river Idigna, and in the Akkadian language that was mouthed in Babylonia and Assyria, its call was Idiqlat.

The Tigris is almost 1,850 km long and arises in the eastern Taurus mountain range, or Republic of Armenia, as it was at one time called. Flowing in a in general southeasterly centering, it passed by Amida (modern Diyarbakir), wherever the Royal Road from Assyria to Anatolia covered the river, and by Nineveh and Aššur. It accepts the waters of the Batman, the Great and Little Zab, and the Diyala. At the concourse with the latter, the city of Opis was established, which is more or lower identical to modern Baghdad. This is the betoken where the river gets navigable for shallow-draft vessels; higher upriver, the Tigris is too atypical, although batches can reach Nineveh.

At Opis, the river arrives at the alluvial plain of Babylonia, and becoming to the south, it commutes into a meandering river. There are not a lot of great cities, since the river is subject to flooding. After all, it receives its water from the mountains of Armenia, where the snows disappear in March. The Tigris flood arrives at Babylonia in May-June, which is at a very luckless moment, since the harvest is in April. In addition to, the flood of the Tigris, which encounters rain water from the Zagros by its affluents, can be exceedingly violent and unpredictable, and can scarcely be controlled. The result is that already in the fourth millennium, people were constructing dikes and apprehending canals. It is frequently said that this was one of the roots for the arise of cities and monarchies.

Nowadays, the rivers Tigris and Euphrates unite some 165 kilometer northwesterly of the shore of the Persian Gulf; their combined course is the long-familiar Shatt al-Arab, shortly from the ancient city Charax. The reconstruction of the ancient landscape is something of a puzzle. Several scholars have arrogated that the shore of the Gulf was much more to the northwest, since Sumerian texts tell that Eridu was close to the sea; on the other hand, geologists have displayed that the shoreline hasn't really boosted or drew back. Credibly, the area was very miry, and there were big, brackish lakes. This is affirmed by the fact that in Eridu, fish bones have been determined of a species of bass that doesn't live in a salt climate.

As the water of the Euphrates and Tigris is relatively salty, there is always the risk of salination. An interesting historical instance can be ascertained in the land of Lagaš, which produced more wheat in c.2400 BCE (16% of the entire harvest); 3 centuries afterward, the land had get too briny for this intersection (2% of the harvest); and after 2000, it was no longer conceivable to produce wheat.

Recent:

The Mississippi River
The Missouri River
The Danube River

Ottawa River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 06:26:00 +0000

The City of Ottawa’s bona fide game as well as the Ontario government’s Provincial assembling device invoice strongly sustain a spotlight on “smart growth”. knowledgeable share includes residential development that places emphasis on utilizing present infrastructure, takes attainment of opportunities to meet housing needs within modern communities and promotes a compact, balanced further sustainable urban structure.

Ottawa River, or, a river in southwestern Quebec further southeastern Ontario. It is about 790 miles (1,270 km) long and is a principal tributary of the St. Lawrence River. From its source esteem the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec, the Ottawa flows recurrently westward and hence southeastward, forming Lake Timiskaming (Lac Témiscamingue) again part of the Quebec-Ontario border. The river empties pastime the St. Lawrence a economical distance downstream from Montreal.

The Ottawa is navigable for shimmering shipping in its lower course also is connected with tarn Ontario by the Rideau River also Canal Tributaries obtain the Madawaska, Coulonge, Gatineau, and Lièvre rivers. Gatineau, Quebec, also Ottawa, Ontario, are unparalleled cities on the Ottawa River. The river is used through lumbering operations.

The Ottawa River has a long history, unbroken longer than the length of the river itself! Initially utilized as a transportation corridor to move people and goods, the Ottawa now is not only a dawn of electrical adeptness generation but one of inspiration. The allure of the Ottawa River and its shorelines is slight to intact who have the chance to travel its waters. Along with beauty, the river offers excellent opportunities for canoe trips, summery bedew rafting or exploring its diverse culture also history.

The Snake River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:41:00 +0000

French Trappers discovered the Snake River gorge in the 1800's. They called irrefutable 'La maudite rivire enrage,' which factor "The accursed mad river". more than likely, it was because trappers had a difficult time maneuvering around Snake River. Nowadays, Snake River is seen as a recreational a annihilation. Snake River offers whitewater rafting, fishing further camping. Depending on what you are significance the set whereas you blame bring about all or just one of these activities.

The Snake River is another well-known recreational river that runs because the northwest United States. countless different locations and states take cut of the Snake River and its waters as undoubted flows from its northern kickoff unattended south and west thanks to its subordinate traveling. Although this river is the abundantly well-known Snake River, it is not the only river in North America labeled as the Snake River. Northern Canada further has a Snake River, now does Michigan, Massachusetts and Minnesota.

The Snake River originates from inside Yellowstone at ease lawns juice the Wyoming area. veritable is a major tributary of the Columbia River. The river reaches a crush 1,040 acquit miles and often maintains about 56,900 cubic feet per aid of water flow (depending on the original seat and time of span). The Snake River helps to form the boundaries between that line Idaho with Washington and Oregon.

The Snake River flows through what is now called the Northwestern Snake River Plain that reaches from Oregon significance Wyoming. This general maintains a mainly desert-type landscape and is on passable about 5,000 square feet above sea shatter. The river runs an interesting course first motion southwest, then northwest through Idaho, forging it’s way into Oregon.

The Snake River is probably most well known thanks to having the deepest gorge pressure the universe. Known as Hell’s Canyon, this quench reaches up to 7,900 ft deep at accurate points. Not clashing gorge in the world compares to it’s massive depth. The terra cotta River supremacy Idaho has the assistance deepest gorge, next the Snake River.

Snake River, Breif History:

The name “Snake River” tremendously ultimate came from the S-shaped snake sign which the Shoshone Indians made with their hand when they talked of the river. Records turn out that evidence of trenchant character certain places along the Snake River restraint impersonate traced support as far over 11,000 years. About 11,000 years ago, the early inhabitants drew upon the submarine variety of food resources the river provided along its banks. As juncture moved on, the natives then eager more towards relying on the fish in the river besides eventually right a traveling association hunting bison besides other local animals.

Early fur traders thousands of agedness ago set evolving trading stations along the Snake River considering well, with evidence of various complexes and cultures around the smooth time. By the historic era, most of the Snake River planes and country were dominated by Shoshone again other culture tribes of inherent Americans. The onset of horses about 1700 years ago allowed the tribes to reinforcement outmost along the river and thrive their territory.

By the early 1800’s the Lewis and Clark visit came upon the subordinate portion of the Snake River. As was the tradition during the Lewis further Clark Expedition, they attempted to re-name the River as the “Lewis River”, but the name did not stick. discrepant expeditions also came over the Snake River during the mid-1800’s discovering the various stretches of the upper and middle portions of the snake. The important Oregon Trail followed emphatically of the Snake River’s path towards the Oregon coast as well.

Since then many dams and hydroelectric plants take it been erected along the Snake River. Washington has four dams, Hells Canyon has a few besides rife more are unraveling throughout Idaho.

The strikingly popular activities along the Snake River are whitewater rafting and fishing. The most haunting stretches of the Snake River white water rafting are the large portions going through Jackson Hole, and then the middle portion functioning since Hells gap. Many rafting outfitters propose single-day and multi-day expeditions since these contrary stretches of the Snake River.

Fishing is a major diversion along the river as well. mainly populated by Salmon and Steelhead, the river provides a eminent opportunity owing to many other fish and fly-fishers. Naturally, prevalent conversation organizations are in the process of strenuous to remove some of the dams along the river to help the community of fish and other wildlife along the river.

Saint Lawrence River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:35:00 +0000

The prima donna Lawrence River is a big river hold North America. It is the primary drainage of the famous Lakes into the Atlantic Ocean. The river flows through the provinces of Ontario also Quebec, forming lesson of the Canada-United States border between Ontario and the increased York State.

The heavy Lawrence River originates at the outflow of pool Ontario between Kingston, Ontario on the north bank further cloak Vincent, extended York on the south. From there, undoubted flows because the Thousand Islands and forasmuch as the Hochelaga Archipelago, which includes the island of Montreal. At Montreal, the river widens, to form Lake Saint Louis also whence narrows again at the Lachine Rapids.

Further downstream, the river passes the provincial capital of Quebec room before wearing into the ravine of leading lady Lawrence, the largest estuary influence the world.

The god Lawrence River flows 1,197 kilometres (744 miles) from its outflow at the eastern end of Lake Ontario to the chasm of master Lawrence. If calculated from its furthest headwater—the North River in the Mesabi affiliate in Minnesota—the distance is a much-longer 3,058 kilometres (1,900 miles).

Its drainage area includes the Great Lakes, the world's largest system of fresh water lakes, and has a size of 1.03 million square kilometres (390,000 square miles). The obscure work out at the maw is 10,400 cubic metres per second (367,000 cubic feet per second).

Lake Champlain and the Ottawa, Richelieu, and Saguenay rivers withdraw preoccupation the St. Lawrence.

The Saint Lawrence River was thought to equate relatively safe from pollution, but by the follow through of the 1970s, despite its whereabouts flow, the river was no longer effective at diluting wastewater discharged significance existing. The river became in consequence polluted that fewer recreational activities were being carried outermost there and fish species were seriously threatened.

As of 2005, Montreal was discharging a gut of 900 billion litres of sewage into the annually. shift most well-known deficient primary treatment, 3.6 billion litres entered the river as benumbed sewage.

Industrial pollution again the obsolete use of banned pesticide DDT along the Great Lakes, St. Lawrence River and its tributaries hold had a serious impact on the river's Beluga whales.

Many beaches along the St. Lawrence trust had to be closed due to pollution, although the efforts are underway to alter water shape again some beaches believe been re-opened. sway the Montreal region, clean-up measures have fitter the dampen quality at some sites, but problems with bacterial contamination persist, especially downstream.

The Peace River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:30:00 +0000

The calm River stretches about 1,200 kilometres from the confluence of the Finlay and the Parsnip Rivers at the man-made Williston Lake, in British Columbia to its confluence with the Slave River in the Athabasca-Peace Delta.

The Peace River begins with the waters that flow from Williston Lake, a man-made pond that formed slow the W.A.C. Bennett Dam, which was built in 1962, further the calmness abyss Dams at Hudson’s Hope. unaffected flows through the tranquillity River defile again drops 60.5 metres guidance eighteen miles. The river in consequence flows past the fertile lands around Fort St. John and into Alberta.

After the tranquillity River is joined by the Smoky River and passes the town of stillness River, it changes direction to a northward direction. It passes Notekiwin site steamboats and barges once unloaded supplies. The river flows by the lapsed settlements of Métis and Mennonites at Caracajou. Further north, the Peace River is crossed by the La Crete ferry. The river turns northwest to Fort Vermillion that was established over 200 years ago. The garnet chutes of massive boulders squeak up the flow of the river 80 kilometers downstream from Fort Vermillion.

After passing the Fox Lake Indian Reserve, the Peace River travels through Wood Buffalo National Park to stillness Point locality it proverbial it name. Peace mark was the start where the Dunne-za (Beaver) besides the Cree leaders met to dispatch the long period of battles and go the peace truck prominence the mid-18th century. The Peace River concludes its journey in the Athabasca-Peace Delta.

The tranquillity River region including the areas that it drains is mouthwatering moment greenback that hog agriculture, oil, gas, timber, again mining.

There is an considerable supply of supplementary water throughout the girth squirrel an typical of 40 centimetres of precipitation a year. Drinking water has regularly been a problem as supplies of moisten opine been in shallow sloughs, creating the lasciviousness for settlers to cargo dampen from springs approaching the river.

Agriculture has been successful because the shorter growing season is compensated seeing go underground more hours of instant light during the growing season. Winter conditions are not too much different from central besides southern Alberta, with a few more appropriate days when the temperature can drop to -60°C. likewise moderating aspect is the thermogenic Pacific winds that periodically punch in in winter.

Mackenzie River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:20:00 +0000

The Mackenzie River is the longest river in Canada covering a area of around 1800 km. stable begins at eminent Slave tarn reputation the Northwest Territories and flows north passion the icy Ocean, discharging 306 cubic kilometres of water per eternity (including 100 million tons of sediment). sensible is the main stem of the second largest river system direction North America (hard by the Mississippi-Missouri river system), and the fourth largest of all river systems discharging into the bleak Ocean (the three largest are in Russia). The entire Mackenzie river die extends 4250 km and drains 1.8 million sq. km. It includes three important lakes (Great Slave, Great Bear and Athabasca) and ample major rivers (such as the Peace, Athabasca, Liard, Hay, Peel, South Nahanni also Slave rivers). material spans four physiographic regions: Western Cordillera, Interior Plain, Precambrian duck and blasting Coastal Plain.

Mackenzie River, a leading river of Canada. Measured from the head of the Finlay River in British Columbia, the Mackenzie is 2,635 miles (4,241 km) long. This river system—the Mackenzie-Peace-Finlay—is the succour longest in North America, exceeded peculiar by the Mississippi-Missouri-Red Rock. It drains some 700,000 countenance miles (1,813,000 km2) of western Canada also has inclination been a pivotal route to the Arctic. The river was discovered by Alexander Mackenzie in 1789.

The Mackenzie becoming begins at the outlet of Great slave Lake, whose waters recur largely from the Slave, Peace, and Athabasca rivers in Alberta further British Columbia. From Great Slave Lake, the Mackenzie flows about 1,100 miles (1,770 km) regularly northwestward to a wide delta where incarnate empties into the Beaufort Sea, part of the frore Ocean. Much of the river's progress is through forested valleys and between soak ranges comparable as the Franklin again Mackenzie mountains. Important tributaries in the river's minor and middle courses are the Liard, Great Bear (draining esteemed Bear Lake), Arctic Red, and Peel rivers.

Barges further towboats examine during the summer between the Mackenzie delta and Lake Athabasca, bringing supplies to the river besides loch villages footing surpassingly of the region's riffraff is indurate. There are important fisheries on eminent Bear again Great captive lakes.

The Grand River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:39:00 +0000

The Grand River is a great river in southwestern Ontario, Canada. From its source, it flows south since Grand Valley, Fergus, Elora, Waterloo, Kitchener, Cambridge, Paris, Brantford, Caledonia, further Cayuga before emptying into the north shore of Lake Erie south of Dunnville at Port Maitland. One of the scenic and flaunted features of the river is the falls and gorge at Elora.

The Grand River is the largest river entirely within southern Ontario's boundaries. The river owes its size to the unusual incident that tangible has its source relatively effectuate to the base of the Bruce Peninsula, yet flows southwards to pond Erie, fairly than to central Lake Huron or Georgian Bay (most southern Ontario rivers moving note the nearest Great Lake, which is why extremely of them are small), thus giving it supplementary place to bear pull more irrigate from tributaries.

The river's undisturbed character, ease of entrance and lack of portages undertake it a admirable canoeing location, especially the stretch between West Montrose and Paris, Ontario. A number of conservation areas exist network the habitat of the river, managed by the Grand River Conservation Authority.

The Grand Valley compose stretches 275 km along the river's valley between the site of Dundalk also loch Erie.

The river was named "Grande Rivière" by the French during the 18th century. It was scheduled renamed Ouse River by John Graves Simcoe for the River great Ouse near his childhood home, although the anglicized form of the French adduce has remained command common use.

The Grand River watershed consists of all the land that drains into the Grand River for tributary creeks and rivers such over the Conestogo, Speed, Eramosa and Nith rivers. The Grand River has Southern Ontario's largest watershed.

Because a watershed is an ecosystem with natural borders, it includes further crosses many municipal boundaries. Its headwaters are planned Dundalk in the north. The Grand River flows south south east.

Luther Marsh, a 52 maintain kilometre wetland on the upper Grand, is one of the largest internal wetlands in southern Ontario further provides dwelling for waterfowl, including numero uno Bittern and murky Tern, besides amphibians. incarnate is also an important staging volume during migration.

The watershed (7000 square kilometers or 2600 square miles) has been recognized by the designation of the Grand as a Canadian Heritage River.

Prior to the highly recent glaciation -- the Laurentide -- an earlier river flowed through a gorge roughly scope to the universal Grand River.[1] indicate of the "buried gorge" of the previous river has been actualize when wells swear by been dug. moderately than accommodation humidify relevance bedrock at a depth of a dozen metres or less the lane of the hustling gorge can impersonate found with overburden of dozens of metres.

During the 16th again 17th centuries, the Grand River valley was inhabited by the Iroquoian speaking.

Attawandaron nation. They were looked toward disposed the offer Neutrals by the European explorers felicitous to their contradiction to side with either the French or the English.

The Wyandot who resided northeast of the Grand River valley were bitter enemies of the Iroquois Confederacy of the present augmented York recite area. attracted in between, the Neutrals eventually paid dearly thanks to their rejection to ally. Historical accounts differ on gladly how the beige tribe was wiped out, but essential is ofttimes agreed that the Seneca further the Mohawk nations of the Six Nations destroyed the smaller sand tribe year severely crippling the Huron pressure the 17th century. It was during this circumstance the revered Canadian Sainte-Marie among the Hurons Jesuit outpost was abandoned.

When the French explorers further Coureur des bois came to the region guidance seek of fur and contrasting items of standing to Europeans, the Grand River Valley was among the last areas of southern Ontario to mean explored. Since the French worked closely with their Native allies agency the acquisition of fur, they particular went post the natives resided. Even adjacent the English taken down and France in 1760 the Grand River Valley remained unoccupied[citation needed] and pacific immensely humble.

The Arkansas River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:19:00 +0000

Arkansas River emerges in central Colorado and flows southeast owing to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas to the Mississippi River. recognized to the key French being Rivière des Ark or d'Ozark, the 1,450-mile river derived its present-day name from the Arkansas Indians who lived along its banks. Hernando de Soto became the number one European to explore the river on his expedition case the Southwest in 1541. The French explorers Louis Jolliet again Jacques Marquette reached its jaws string 1673, influence their search for a river "coming imprint from California on the southern sea." The Arkansas doorjamb (drag present-day southeastern Arkansas), noted significance 1686 by Henry de Tonti, was the first lasting adjudication clout the Arkansas River region, and the virgin chronicle of the river centers around the post.

During the eighteenth century, the headwaters of the Arkansas were in Spanish lands. In 1696, the Spanish explorer Uribarri appropriate the name "Rio Napestle" to the upper Arkansas, a name the Spanish continued to use until the nineteenth century. The 1819Adams-Onís Treaty between the United States and Spain prepared the Arkansas River west of the 100th parallel a model of the western nib of the United States. The name "Arkansas," which had applied only to lower reaches of the stream, was carried westward by American traders and trappers further succeeded prestige replacing the mention "Rio Napestle," or "Napeste."

The Arkansas River was a highway for the French again Spanish. In the nineteenth century, it was navigable hole up keelboats as sunk west as Grand River. By the basic twentieth century, it had further eventually be a source of water because farms, industries, and cities and the subject of conflicts among the various users of the river's waters.

Historical Review:

The Rivers besides streams of America swear by had a profound influence on regional growth again development. Where once rampaging waters menaced every valley, America’s waterways are today one of our greatest national assets. This groovy transformation has resulted from the vision of elementary statesmen, the dreams of a firm people, also a studied visionary policy.

At 1450 miles, the Arkansas is the longest tributary in the Mississippi-Missouri system. From its jumping-off place near Leadville, Colorado, the river drops 10,000 feet in 125 miles, carving out scenic style including the Royal allay. It travels considering Kansas, stage it irrigates wheat fields, forasmuch as as Northeastern Oklahoma. crack undoubted is joined by the Canadian, Cimarron, Neosho-Grand, besides Verdigris Rivers. It forasmuch as crosses the image of Arkansas where irrefutable empties diversion the Mississippi River 600 miles north of New Orleans.

After the year 1540, The Arkansas River is discovered by Europeans before the Mississippi. Francisco Vasquez de Coronado crossed the Arkansas near present month game City, Kansas, using a fording set down frequented by native peoples and buffalo.

A terse case later, Hernando de Soto was on the lesser illustration of the Arkansas. Within a month he discovered the Mississippi. Descending the Mississippi, he reached the Arkansas River near the latter day Arkansas Post, further turned unfolding glimmer effect search of the Indian town of Coliqua which was agency the general area of Little Rock.

In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Riverboat trade by early French explorers and traders who brought unfolding goods suitable for trading with the Indians whereas furs and skins. They used bull-boats (constructed by beefing up buffalo hides over a framework of tree limbs), pirogues (hollowed-out logs), flatboats further keelboats (designed for sole- way use. nearest cargo was delivered and unloaded, keelboat would express broken up seeing scrap).

As a adjustment of international tensions and the contest of 1812, competent is royal proposition benign legislation for improvement of home waterways. The disagreement did make evident the need for more reliable internal transportation systems.

The Rhine River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:19:00 +0000

The River Rhine has a length of 1320 kilometres and rises in Switzerland as a fast flowing mountain river, being fed by the meltwater of glaciers and snow in the Alps. The area of the Rhine basin is 185 000 km2, of which 25 000 km2 in the Netherlands (Middelkoop, 1998) and 100 000 km2 in Germany. Approximately 50 million people live in the Rhine basin (Klein et al., s.a.). The Rhine is one of the largest rivers of Europe and is fed by rainwater and meltwater from 9 countries and flows out into the North Sea and IJsselmeer in the Netherlands. The Rhine enters the Netherlands at Lobith. There the average discharge is 2300 m3 s-1 (Middelkoop, 1998). The discharges in the 20th century varied between 620 m3 s-1 (November 1947) and 12 600 m3 s-1 (January 1926). The design discharge at Lobith is 16 000 m3 s-1. The probability of a discharge at Lobith of 16 000 m3 s-1 or more in a year is on average 1/1250 (van de Langemheen et al., 2002). In the Netherlands the average flow velocity varies from 0.5 to 1.5 m s-1, with outliers above 2 m s-1. In the Netherlands 65 percent of the sweet surface water originates from the Rhine. Therefore, the river has a large influence on the Dutch water management.

The Rhine River

The Rhine basin can be divided into the Alpine area upstream Basel, the German middle mountains between Basel and Köln and the lowland area (Middelkoop, 2000). In Switzerland the Rhine is called “Alphenrhein”, in Germany between Bazel and Bingen “Oberrhein”, between Bingen and Bonn “Mittelrhein” and between Bonn and Lobith “Niederrhein” (Middelkoop, 1998). At the weir at Driel in the Netherlands the Rhine is split into the Waal, the Nederrijn and the IJssel. The average precipitation over the whole catchment area of the Rhine is 910 mm per year, the evaporation 470 mm, so on average 440 mm is discharged (Promes, 1987). The amount and timing of precipitation, snow storage and snow melt in the Alps, the evapotranspiration excess during the summer period, and alterations in the quantity of groundwater and soil water storage together chiefly determine the discharge of the Rhine.

Historical View Around The Rhine:

I love rivers; they do more than bear merchandise ideas float along their surface. Rivers, like clarions, sing to the ocean of the beauty of the earth, the fertility of plains, and the splendor of cities.

Of all rivers, I prefer the Rhine. It is now a year, when passing the bridge of boats at Kehl, since I first saw it. I remember that I felt a certain respect, a sort of admiration, for this old, this classic stream. I never think of rivers those great works of Nature, which are also great in history, without emotion.

I remember the Rhone at Valserine; I saw it in 1825, in a pleasant excursion to Switzerland, which is one of the sweet, happy recollections of my early life. I remember with what noise, with what ferocious bellowing, the Rhone precipitated itself into the gulf whilst the frail bridge upon which I was standing was shaking beneath my feet. Ah! well! since that time, the Rhone brings to my mind the idea of a tiger, the Rhine, that of a lion.

The evening on which I saw the Rhine for the first time, I was impressed with the same idea. For several minutes I stood contemplating this proud and noble river violent, but not furious; wild, but still majestic. It was swollen, and was magnificent in appearance, and was washing its yellow mane, or, as Boileau says, its "slimy beard", the bridge of boats. Its two banks were lost in the twilight, and though its roaring was loud, still there was tranquility.

Yes, the Rhine is a noble river feudal, republican, imperial worthy, at the same time, of France and Germany. The whole history of Europe is combined within its two great aspects in this flood of the warrior and of the philosopher in this proud stream, which causes France to bound with joy, and by whose profound murmurings Germany is bewildered in dreams.

The Rhine is unique; it combines the qualities of every river. Like the Rhone, it is rapid j broad, like the Loire; encased, like the Meuse; serpentine, like the Seine; limpid and green, like the Somme; historical, like the Tiber; royal, like the Danube; mysterious, like the Nile; spangled with gold, like an American river; and, like a river of Asia, abounding with phantoms and fables.

Before the commencement of History, perhaps before the existence of man, where the Rhine now is there was a double chain of volcanos, which on their extinction left heaps of lava and basalt lying parallel, like two long walls. At the same epoch the gigantic crystallizations formed the primitive mountains; the enormous alluvions of which the secondary mountains consist were dried up ; the frightful heap, which is now cold, and snow accumulated on them, from which two great streams issued, the one flowing towards the north, crossed the plains, encountered the sides of the extinguished volcanos, and emptied itself into the ocean ; the other, taking its course westward, fell from mountain to mountain, flowed along the side of the block of extinguished volcanos, which is now Ardache, and was finally lost in the Mediterranean. The first of those inundations is the Rhine, and the second the Rhone.

From historical records we find that the first people who took possession of the banks of the Rhine were the half-savage Celts, who were afterwards named Gauls by the Romans. When Rome was in its glory, Caesar crossed the Rhine, and shortly afterwards the whole of the river was under the jurisdiction of his empire. When the Twenty-second Legion returned from the siege of Jerusalem, Titus sent it to the banks of the Rhine, where it continued the work of Martius Agrippa. The conquerors required a town to join Melibocus to Taunus; and Moguntiacum, begun by Martius, was founded by the Legion, built by Trajan, and embellished by Adrian. Singular coincidence! and which we must note in passing. This Twenty-second Legion brought with it Crescentius, who was first that carried the Word of God into the Rhingau, and founded the new religion. God ordained that these ignorant men, who had pulled down the last stone of His temple upon the Jordan, should lay the first of another upon the banks of the Rhine. After Trajan and Adrian came Julian, who erected a fortress upon the confluence of the Rhine and the Moselle; then Valentinian, who built a number of castles. Thus in a few centuries, Roman colonies, like an immense chain, linked the whole of the Rhine,,

At length the time arrived when Rome was to assume another aspect. The incursions of the Northern hordes were eventually too frequent and too powerful for Rome; so, about the Sixth Century, the banks of the Rhine were strewed with Roman ruins, as at present with feudal ones.

Charlemagne cleared away the rubbish, built fortresses, and opposed the German hordes; but notwithstanding his desire to do more, Rome died, and the physiognomy of the Rhine was changed.

Already, as I before mentioned, an unperceived germ was sprouting in the Rhingau. Religion, that divine eagle, began to spread its wings, and deposited among the rocks an egg that contained the germ of a world. St. Apollinaire, following the example of Crescentius, who, in the year 70 preached the Word of God at Taunus, visited Rigomagum. St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, catechized Confluentia; St. Materne, before visiting Tongres, resided at Cologne. At Treves, Christians began to suffer the death of martyrdom, and their ashes were swept away by the wind; but these were not lost, for they became seeds, which were germinating in the fields during the passage of the barbarians, although nothing at that time was seen of them.

After an historical period the Rhine became linked with the marvellous. Where the noise of man is hushed, Nature lends a tongue to the nest of birds, causes the caves to whisper, and the thousand voices of solitude to murmur; where historical facts cease, imagination gives life to shadows and realities to dreams. Fables took root, grew, and blossomed in the voids of History, like weeds and brambles in the crevices of a ruined palace.

Civilization, like the sun, has its nights and its days, its plenitudes and its eclipses; now it disappears, but soon returns.

As soon as civilization again dawned upon Taunus, there were upon the borders of the Rhine a whole host of legends and fabulous stories. Populations of mysterious beings, who inhabited the now dismantled castles, had held communion with the belles filles and beaux chevaliers of the place. Spirits of the rocks; black hunters, crossing the thickets upon stags with six horns; the maid of the black fen j the six maidens of the red marshes; Wodan, the god with ten hands; the twelve black men; the raven that croaked its song; the devil who placed his stone at Teufelstein and his ladder Teufelsleiter, and who had the effrontery to preach publicly at Gernsbach, near the Black Forest, but, happily, the Word of God was heard at the other side of the stream; the demon, Urian, who crossed the Rhine at Dusseldorf, having upon his back the banks that he had taken from the sea-shore, with which he intended to destroy Aix-la-Chapelle, but being fatigued with his burden, and deceived by an old woman, he stupidly dropped his load at the imperial city, where that bank is at present pointed out, and bears the name of Loosberg. At that epoch, which for us was plunged into a penumbra, when magic lights were sparkling here and there, when the rocks, the woods, the valleys, were tenanted by apparitions; mysterious encounters, infernal castles, melodious songs sung by invisible song-stresses; the frightful bursts of laughter emanating from mysterious beings, these, with a host of other adventures, shrouded in impossibility, and holding on by the heel of reality, are detailed in the legends.

At last these phantoms disappear as dawn bursts in upon them. Civilization again resumed its sway, and fiction gave place to fact. The Rhine assumed another aspect: abbeys and convents increased; churches were built along the banks of the river. The ecclesiastic princes multiplied the edifices in the Rhingau, as the prefects of Rome had done before them.

The Sixteenth Century approached: in the Fourteenth the Rhine witnessed the invention of artillery; and on its bank, at Strasbourg, a printing office was first established. In 1400 the famous cannon, fourteen feet in length, was cast at Cologne; and in 1472 Vindelin de Spire printed his Bible. A new world was making its appearance; and, strange to say, it was upon the banks of the Rhine that those two mysterious tools with which God unceasingly works out the civilization of man, the catapult and the book war and thought, took a new form.

The Rhine, in the destinies of Europe, has a sort of providential signification. It is the great moat which divides the north from the south. The Rhine for thirty ages, has seen the forms and reflected the shadows of almost all the warriors who tilled the old continent with that share which they call sword. Caesar crossed the Rhine in going to the south; Attila crossed it when descending to the north. It was here that Clovis gained the battle of Tolbiac; and that Charlemagne and Napoleon figured. Frederick Barbarossa, Rudolph of Hapsbourg, and Frederick the First, were great, victorious, and formidable when here. For the thinker, who is conversant with History, two great eagles are perpetually hovering over the Rhine that of the Roman legions, and that of the French regiments. The Rhine that noble flood, which the Romans named Rhenus superbus, bore at one time upon its surface bridges of boats, over which the armies of Italy, Spain, and France poured into Germany, and which, at a later date, were made use of by the hordes of barbarians when rushing into the ancient Roman world: at another, on its surface it floated peaceably the fir-trees of Murg and St. Gall, the porphyry and the marble of Bale, the salt of Karlshall, the leather of Stromberg, the quicksilver of Lansberg, the wine of Johannisberg, the slates of Coab, the cloth and earthenware of Wallendar, the silks and linens of Cologne. It majestically performs its double function of flood of war and flood of peace, having, without interruption, upon the ranges of hills which embank the most notable portion of its course, oak-trees on the one side and vine-trees on the other signifying strength and joy.

For Homer the Rhine existed not; for Virgil it was only a frozen stream Frigiora Rbeni ; for Shakespeare it was the “beautiful Rhine”; for us it is, and will be to the day when it shall become the grand question of Europe, a picturesque river, the resort of the unemployed of Ems, of Baden, and of Spa.

Niagara River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:05:00 +0000

The Niagara River flows from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. The shore of Erie is more than 300 feet higher than the shore of Ontario; but if you pass from the higher shore to the lower, you do not descend at a uniform rate. Starting from Lake Erie and going northwards, you travel upon a plain not level, but with only gentle undulations until you approach the shore of Lake Ontario, and then suddenly you find yourself on the brink of a high bluff, or cliff, overlooking the lower lake and separated from it only by a narrow strip of sloping plain.

Where the Niagara River leaves Lake Erie at Buffalo and enters the plain, a low ridge of rock crosses its path, and in traversing this its water is troubled; but it soon becomes smooth, spreads out broadly and indolently loiters on the plain. For three-fourths of the distance it cannot be said to have a valley, it rests upon the surface of the plateau; but then its habit suddenly changes. By the short rapid at Goat Island and by the cataract itself the water of the river is dropped two hundred feet down into the plain, and thence to the cliff at Lewiston it races headlong through a deep and narrow gorge. From Lewiston to Lake Ontario there are no rapids. The river is again broad, and its channel is scored so deeply in the littoral plain that the current is relatively slow, and the level of its water surface varies but slightly from that of the lake.

The narrow gorge that contains the river from the Falls to Lewiston is a most peculiar and noteworthy feature. Its width rarely equals the fourth of a mile, and its depth to the bottom of the river ranges from two hundred to five hundred feet. Its walls are so steep that opportunities for climbing up and down them are rare, and in these walls one may see the geologic structure of the plateau.

The contour of the cataract is subject to change. From time to time blocks of rock break away, falling into the pool below, and new shapes are then given to the brink over which the water leaps. Many such falls of rock have taken place since the white man occupied the banks of the river, and the breaking away of a very large section is still a recent event. By such observation we are assured that the extent of the gorge is increasing at its end, that it is growing longer, and that the cataract is the cause of its extension.

This determination is the first element in the history of the river. A change is in progress before our eyes. The river's history, like human history, is being enacted, and from that which occurs we can draw inferences concerning what has occurred, and what will occur. We can look forward to the time when the gorge now traversing the fourth part of the width of the plateau will completely divide it, so that the Niagara will drain Lake Erie to the bottom. We can look back to the time when there was no gorge, but when the water flowed on the top of the plain to its edge, and the Falls of Niagara were at Lewiston.

We may think of the river as labouring at a task the task of sawing in two the plateau. The task is partly accomplished. When it is done the river will assume some other task. Before it was begun what did the river do?

How can we answer this question? The surplus water discharge from Lake Erie could not have flowed by this course to Lake Ontario without sawing at the plateau. Before it began the cutting of the gorge it' did not flow along this line. It may have flowed somewhere else, but if so it did not constitute the Niagara River. The commencement of the cutting of the Niagara gorge is the beginning of the history of the Niagara River.

The river began its existence during the final retreat of the great ice sheet, or, in other words, during the series of events that closed the age of ice in America. During the course of its history the length of the river has suffered some variation by reason of the successive fall and rise of the level of Lake Ontario. It was at first a few miles shorter than now; then it became suddenly a few miles longer, and its present length was gradually acquired.

With the change in the position of its mouth there went a change in the height of its mouth; and the rate at which it eroded its channel was affected thereby. The influence on the rate of erosion was felt chiefly along the lower course of the river between Lewiston and Fort Niagara.

The volume of the river has likewise been inconstant. In early days, when the lakes levied a large tribute on the melting glacier, the Niagara may have been a larger river than now; but there was a time when the discharge from the upper lakes avoided the route by Lake Erie, and then the Niagara was a relatively small stream.

The great life work of the river has been the digging of the gorge through which it runs from the cataract to Lewiston. The beginning of its life was the beginning of that task. The length of the gorge is in some sense a measure of the river's age.

The river sprang from a great geologic revolution, the banishment of the dynasty of cold, and so its lifetime is a geologic epoch; but from first to last man has been a witness to its toil, and so its history is interwoven with the history of man. The human comrade of the river's youth was not, alas! a reporter with a notebook, else our present labour would be light. He has even told us little of himself. We only know that on a gravelly beach of Lake Iroquois, now the Ridge Road, he rudely gathered stones to make a hearth and built a fire; and the next storm breakers, forcing back the beach, buried and thus preserved, to gratify yet whet our curiosity, hearth, ashes and charred sticks.

In these Darwinian days we cannot deem primeval the man possessed of the Promethean art of fire, and so his presence on the scene adds zest to the pursuit of the Niagara problem. Whatever the antiquity of the great cataract may be found to be, the antiquity of man is greater.

Don River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 03:40:00 +0000

The lands draining to the Sea of Azov, form no sharply defined region, with bold natural frontiers and distinct populations. The sources of the Don and its headstreams intermingle with those of the Volga and Dnieper some like the Medveditza, flowing even for some distance parallel with the Volga. As in the Dnieper and Dniester valleys, the “black lands” and bare steppes here also follow each other successively as we proceed southwards, while the population naturally diminishes in density in the same direction. The land is occupied in the north and east by the Great Russians, westwards by the Little Russians, in the south and in New Russia by colonies of every race and tongue, rendering this region a sort of common territory, where all the peoples of the empire except the Finns are represented. Owing to the great extent of the steppes, the population is somewhat less dense than in the Dnieper basin and Central Russia, but it is yearly and rapidly increasing.

The Don River

The Don, the root of which is probably contained in its Greek name Tanai's, is one of the great European rivers, if not in the volume of its waters, at least in the length of its course, with its windings some 1335 miles altogether. Rising in a lakelet in the government of Tula, it flows first southwards to its junction with the nearly parallel Veronej, beyond which point it trends to the south-east, and even eastwards, as if extending to reach the Volga. After being enlarged by the Khopor and Medveditza, it arrives within forty-five miles of that river, above which it has a mean elevation of 138 feet. Its banks, like those of the Volga, present the normal appearance, the right being raised and steep, while the left has already been levelled by the action of the water. Thus the Don flows, as it were, on a sort of terrace resembling a stair step, the right or western cliffs seemingly diverting it to the lower Volga bed. Nevertheless, before reaching that river, it makes a sharp bend first southwards, then south-westwards to the Sea of Azov.

From a commercial stand-point, it really continues the course of the Volga. Flowing to a sea which, through the Straits of Yeni-Kaleh, the Bosphorus, Dardanelles, and Gibraltar, communicates with the ocean, it has the immense advantage over the Volga of not losing itself in a landlocked basin. Hence most of the goods brought down the Volga are landed at the bend nearest the Don, and forwarded to that river. When besieging Astrakhan the Sultan Selim II. had already endeavoured to cut a canal between the two rivers, in order to transport his supplies to the Caspian. Peter the Great resumed the works, but the undertaking was abandoned, and until the middle of the present century the portage was crossed only by beasts of burden and wagons. But since 1861 the rivers have been connected by rail. Free from ice for about two hundred and forty days at its easternmost bend, the Don is sometimes so low and blocked with shoals that navigation becomes difficult even for flat-bottomed boats. During the two floods, at the melting of the ice in spring, and in the summer rains, its lower course rises eighteen to twenty feet above its normal level, overflowing its banks in several places for a distance of eighteen miles.

The most important, although not the most extensive, coal-fields of Russia cover an area of about 10000 square miles, chiefly in the southern part of the Donetz basin. Since 1865, nearly 650 beds have been found, mostly near the surface, the seams varying in thickness from one foot to twenty-four feet, and containing every description of combustible material, from the anthracite to the richest bituminous coal. The ravines here furrowing the land facilitate the study of the strata and the extraction of the mineral. Yet these valuable deposits were long neglected, and even during the Crimean war the Russians, deprived of their English supplies, were still without the necessary apparatus to avail themselves of these treasures.

Even the iron ores, which here also abound, were little utilized till that event, since when the extraction both of coal and iron has gone on continually increasing in the Donetz basin. In 1839, the yield scarcely exceeded 14000 tons, whereas the output of the Grushova mines alone now amounts to 210000 tons, and the total yield of the coal pits exceeded 672000 tons in 1872. The coal is now used by the local railways and steamers of the Don, Sea of Azov, and Euxine.

Already reduced in extent by the terrestrial revolutions which separated it from the Caspian, the Sea of Azov has been further diminished in historic times, although far less than might be supposed from the local traditions. No doubt Herodotus gives the Palus Maeotis an equal area to that of the Euxine. But as soon as the Greeks had visited and founded settlements on this inland sea they discovered how limited it was compared with the open sea. Nevertheless, fifteen hundred years ago it was certainly somewhat larger and deeper than at present, the alluvia of the Don having gradually narrowed its basin and raised its bed. Its outline also has been completely changed, Strabo’s description no longer answering to the actual form of its shores.

The town of Tanai's, founded by the Greeks, at the very mouth of the Don, and which at the time of Ptolemy was already at some distance from the coast, has ceased to exist. But the architectural remains and inscriptions discovered by Leontiyev between Siniavka and the village of Nedoigovka, show that its site was about six miles from the old mouth of the Great Don, since changed to a dry bed. The course of the main stream has been deflected southwards, and here is the town of Azov, for a time the successor of Tanai's in strategic and commercial importance. But where the flow is most abundant, there also the alluvium encroaches most rapidly, and the delta would increase even at a still more accelerated rate for the fierce east and north-east gales prevailing for a great part of the year. The sedimentary matter brought down, in the proportion of about one to 1,200 of fluid, amounts altogether to 230160000 cubic feet, causing a mean annual advance of nearly 22 feet.

The Gulf of Taganrog, about eighty miles long and forming the north-east extremity of the sea, may, on the whole, be regarded as a simple continuation of the Don, as regards both the character of its water and its current, and the windings of its navigable channel. This gulf, with a mean depth of from ten to twelve and nowhere exceeding twenty-four feet, seems to have diminished by nearly two feet since the first charts, dating from the time of Peter the Great. But a comparison of the soundings taken at various times is somewhat difficult, as the exact spots where they were taken and the kind of feet employed are somewhat doubtful, not to mention the state of the weather, and especially the direction of the winds during the operations. Under the influence of the winds the level of the sea may be temporarily raised or lowered at various points as much as ten or even sixteen or seventeen feet. The mean depth of the whole sea is about thirty-two feet, which, for an area of 14217 square miles, would give an approximate volume of 13000 billion cubic feet, or about four times that of Lake Geneva. The bed, composed, like the surrounding steppes, of argillaceous sands, unbroken anywhere by a single rock, is covered, at an extremely low rate of progress, with fresh strata, in which organic remains are mingled with the sandy detritus of the shores. If a portion of the sedimentary matter brought down by the Don were not carried out to the Euxine, the inner sea would be filled up in the space of 56500 years.

Yukon River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 03:31:00 +0000

To within a few years ago a great unexplored solitude extended to the eastward between the valleys of the Upper Yukon, or Lewes, and the Mackenzie, and from the sixtieth parallel of latitude northward to the shores of the 41 frozen ocean." This extensive region is known as the Yukon country, a name rendered appropriate by the fact that it is drained by the Yukon River and its tributaries, which form one of the great river systems of the world.

Yukon River

Walled in by high mountains, and in consequence unapproachable from every side, it is not strange that the Yukon district should so long have remained in almost undisturbed seclusion. Had it not been for the fact that the rich metalliferous belt of the Coast and Gold Ranges passes through the district from one end to the other, the probability is that it would still have remained unexplored for many years to come.

Only four gates of approach to the district exist, and, strangely enough, these are situated at the four corners. From the north-west, access is gained to the country by following the Yukon from its mouth in Behring Sea; from the north-east, by crossing from the Mackenzie to the Porcupine, and following down the latter stream to its confluence with the Yukon; from the south-east, by ascending the Liard from Fort Simpson and crossing the water-shed to the head-waters of the Felly; and finally, from the south-west, by entering where the coast range is pierced by the Chilkoot and Chilkat Passes.

As a matter of fact, all these routes are beset with difficulties, and when it is remembered that there are only four roads into a region three times greater in extent than the total area of the New England States, it is not to be wondered at that the total population of the region should consist of a few scattered Indian families and a hundred or so of hardy miners.

Occasional contributions to our knowledge of the district have been made from time to time for at least half a century, mainly by officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, miners and employees of the abandoned Telegraph Expedition; and skeleton maps of the interior have been constructed in accordance with the topographical data, so far as known.

Among recent expeditions that of Lieutenant Schwatka, of the United States Army, in the summer of 1883, may be mentioned. Entering the country by the Chilkoot Pass, Lieutenant Schwatka floated down the Yukon on a raft from the source of the Lewes River to Nuklikahyet, continuing his journey from this point to the sea by boat. The object of this expedition was to examine the country from a military point of view, and to collect all available information with regard to the Indian tribes. We are indebted to it also for a great deal of general information with regard to the country. Schwatka, who seems to have gone through the country with his eyes open, used the explorer's baptismal privilege freely, and scattered monuments of Schwatkanian nomenclature broadcast throughout the land, re-christening many places that had already been named, and doing so too in apparent indifference to the fact that many thus set aside had an established priority of many years.

The part of the journey between Victoria and Chilkoot Inlet has been so much written of, talked of and pictured during the last few years that I will repeat only one of the many statements made concerning it that though it is in ocean waters and can be traversed by the largest ships, it is
so sheltered by countless islands from the gales and waves of the vast Pacific, nearly the whole of the length, that its waters are always as smooth as those of a large river. In marked contrast to this is the west coast of the United States, where harbours are like angel's visits.

Chatham Strait and Lynn Channel lie almost in a straight line, and during the summer there is always a strong wind blowing up from the sea. At the head of Lynn Channel are Chilkat and Chilkoot Inlets. The distance down these channels to the open sea is about three hundred and eighty miles, and along the whole extent of this the mountains on each side of the water confine the incoming currents of air and deflect inclined currents in the direction of the axis of the channel. Coming from the sea, these air currents are heavily charged with moisture, which is precipitated when they strike the mountains, and the fall of rain and snow is consequently very heavy.

The rapids extending for a couple of miles below the Canon, are not at all bad. What constitutes the real danger is a piece of calm water forming a short, sharp bend in the river, which hides the last or “White Horse” rapids from sight until they are reached. These rapids are about three eighths of a mile long. They are the most dangerous on the river, and are never run through in boats except by accident. Parties always examine the Canon and rapids below before going through, and coming to the calm water suppose they have seen them all, as all noise from the lower rapid is drowned in that of the ones above. On this account several parties have run through the “White Horse”, being ignorant of its existence until they were in it. These rapids are confined by low basaltic banks, which, at the foot, suddenly close in and make the channel about thirty yards wide. It is here the danger lies, as there is a sudden drop, and the water rushes through at a tremendous rate, leaping and seething like a cataract. The miners have constructed a portage road on the west side, and put down rollways in some places on which to shove their boats over. They have also made some windlasses with which to haul their boats uphill, notably one at the foot of the Canon. This roadway and the windlasses must have cost them many hours of hard labour.

Lake Labarge was reached on the evening of the 26th of July, and our camp pitched on its southern shore. The lake is thirty-one miles in length, broad at both ends and narrow in the middle, lying north and south, like a long slender foot-print made by some gigantic Titan in long-bygone days.

As the prevailing wind blows almost constantly down the lake, the miners complain much of the detention from the roughness of the water, and for the three days I was on the lake, I certainly cannot complain of any lack of attention from blustering Austral is.

The survey was carried along the western shore, which is irregular in shape, being indented by large, shallow bays, especially at the upper and lower ends.

Just above where the lake narrows in the middle, there is a large island, which is shown on Schwatka's map as a peninsula, and called by him Richtofen Rocks. How he came to think it a peninsula I cannot understand, as it is well out in the lake; the nearest point of it to the western shore is upwards of half a mile distant, and the extreme width of the lake here, as determined from triangulation, is not more than five miles, which includes the depth of the deepest bays on the western side. It is therefore difficult to understand that he did not see it as an island. The upper half of this island is gravelly, and does not rise very high above the lake; the lower end is rocky and high, the rock of a bright red colour and probably granite.

At the lower end of the lake there is a deep wide valley extending northwards, which has evidently at one time been the outlet of the lake. In this the mixed timber, poplar, and spruce, is of a size which betokens a fair soil; the herbage, too, is more than usually rich for this region. This valley, which Dr. Dawson has named “Ogilvie Valley”, is extensive, and if ever required as an aid to the sustenance of our people, will figure largely in the district's agricultural assets.

The waters of the Big Salmon are sluggish and slow. The valley, as seen from the mouth, is wide, and gives one the impression of being occupied by a much more important stream. Looking up it, in the distance could be seen many high peaks covered with snow, and, as this was in the beginning of August, it is likely they are always covered so which would make their probable altitude above the river, five thousand feet or more.

About thirty-six miles, the river constantly winding low, sandy points, and dotted with small, well-timbered islands, brought us to the Little Salmon (Daly of Schwatka), a small and unimportant stream entering upon the east. One of the most remarkable objects along the river, located just below the Little Salmon, is a huge hemisphere of rock, called the “Eagle's Nest”, rising abruptly from a gravel slope on the east bank, to a height of about five hundred feet. It is of a light grey colour, but what the character of the rock is I could not determine, as I saw it only from the river, which is about a quarter of a mile distant.

We passed the mouth of the Nordenskiold on the 9th of August. The river here makes a loop of eight miles round a hill on the east bank named by Schwatka, Tantalus Butte. The distance across from point to point is only half a mile.

Early the next day we heard the booming of the Rink Rapids in the distance, and it was not long before they were in sight. These rapids are known to miners as Five Finger Rapids, from the fact that five large, bold masses of rock stand in mid-channel. This obstruction backs up the water so as to raise it about a foot, causing a swell below for a few yards.

Six miles below Rink Rapids are what are known as “Little Rapids”. This is simply a barrier of rocks which extends from the westerly side of the river about half-way across. Over this barrier there is a ripple which would offer no great obstacle to the descent in a good canoe.

About five miles above Pelly River there is another lake-like expanse filled with islands. The river here is nearly a mile wide, and so numerous and close are the islands that it is impossible to tell where the shores of the river are. The current, too, is swift, leading one to suppose the water shallow; but I think that even here a channel deep enough for such boats as will navigate this part of the river, could easily be found. Schwatka named this group “Ingersoll Islands”.

About a mile below the junction with the Lewes, and on the south side, stands all that remains of the only permanent trading-post ever built by white men in the district. This post was established by Robert Campbell, for the Hudson's Bay Company, in the summer of 1848. It was built upon the point of land between the two rivers, but this location proving untenable, on account of flooding by ice-jams in the spring, it was, in the season of 1852, moved across the river to where the ruins now stand. It appears that the houses composing the post were not finished when the Indians from the coast on Chilkat and Chilkoot Inlets, came down the river to put a stop to the competitive trade which Mr. Campbell had inaugurated and which they found to seriously interfere with their profits. Their method of trade appears to have been then pretty much as it is now very one-sided. What they found convenient to take by force, they took; and what they found convenient to pay for, they paid for at their own price.

Rumours had reached the post that the coast Indians contemplated a raid, and, in consequence, the friendly Indians in the vicinity remained about nearly all summer. Unfortunately, they went away for a short time, and, during their absence, the coast Indians arrived and pillaged the place, and set fire to it, leaving nothing but the remains of two chimneys, which are still standing. This raid and capture took place on Sunday, the 1st of August, 1852. Mr. Campbell was ordered to leave the country within twenty-four hours, and accordingly he dropped down the river. On his way he met some of the local Indians, and returned with them, but the robbers had made their escape. Mr. Campbell went on down the river until he met the outfit for his post on its way up from Fort Yukon. He turned it back. He then ascended the Felly, crossed to the Liard, and reached Fort Simpson, on the Mackenzie, late in October.

Nothing more was ever done in the vicinity of Fort Selkirk by the Hudson's Bay Company after these events, and in 1869 the company was ordered by Capt. Chas. W. Raymond, who represented the United States Government, to evacuate the post at Fort Yukon, which he had ascertained to be west of the 14151 meridian. The post was occupied by the company, however, for some time after the receipt of the order, until Rampart House, which was intended to be on British territory, and to take the trade previously done at Fort Yukon, was built. Under present conditions the company cannot very well compete with the Alaska Fur Company, whose agents do the only trade in the district, and they appear to have abandoned for the present at least all attempts to do any trade nearer to it than Rampart House, to which point, notwithstanding the distance and difficulties in the way, many of the Indians on the Pelly-Yukon make a trip every two or three years to procure goods in exchange for their furs.

On the 19th I resumed my journey northwards. Opposite Fort Selkirk, the Pelly-Yukon River is about one-third of a mile broad; and it maintains this width down to White River, a distance of ninety-six miles. Islands are numerous, so much so that there are few parts of the river where one or more are not in sight; many of them are of considerable size, and nearly all are well timbered.

Between Stewart and White Rivers the river spreads out to a mile and upwards in width, and is a maze of islands and bars. Stewart River, which was reached on the following day, enters from the east in the middle of a wide valley, with low hills on both sides, rising on the north side in clearly marked steps or terraces to distant hills of considerable height. The river, a short distance up, is two hundred yards in width, the current slack, the water shallow and clear, but dark-coloured; while at the mouth, I was fortunate enough to meet a miner, named McDonald, who had spent the whole of the summer of 1887 on the river and its branches, prospecting and exploring. He gave me a good deal of information, which I have incorporated in my map of the district. This man had ascended two of the main branches of the river. At the head of one of them he found a large lake, which he named Mayhew Lake. On the other branch he found falls, which he estimated to be from one to two hundred feet in height. McDonald went on past the falls to the head of this branch, and found terraced gravel hills to the west and north; he crossed them to the north and found a river flowing northwards. On this he embarked on a raft, and floated down it for a day or two, thinking it would turn to the west and join the Stewart, but finding it still continuing north, and acquiring too much volume to be any of the branches he had seen while passing up the Stewart, he returned to his point of departure, and after prospecting among the hills around the head of the river he started westwards, crossing a high range of mountains composed principally of shales with many thin seams of what is called quartz, ranging from one to six inches in thickness. On the west side of this range he found the head-waters of Beaver River, which he descended on a raft, taking five days to do so.

It is probable the river flowing northwards, on which he made a journey and returned, is a branch of Peel River. The timber on the gravel terraces of the water-shed, he described as small and open. He was alone in this un- known wilderness all summer, not seeing even any of the natives. There are few men, I think, so constituted as to be capable of isolating themselves in such a manner.

On the 1st of September, we passed the site of the temporary trading-post shown on the maps as Fort Reliance. Several days of continuous rain now interrupted our work so that Forty Mile River (Cone Hill River of Schwatka) was not reached till the 7th of September.

The River Nile

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:09:00 +0000

The holy river "the Nile" formerly bore the name of Aegyptus. Professor Rawlinson in his History of the Ancient Egyptians, says: "The term Egypt was not known to the ancient Egyptians themselves, but appears to have been first used by the Greeks as a name for the Nile, and thence extended to the country. It is stated by some authorities that the river received its present title from Nilus, an ancient king of Thebes, who named the stream after himself."

The valley of the Nile

"Father Nile" was an object of great veneration to the ancients, and a gift of its waters was considered by them as a present fit for kings and queens. The veneration in which the river was held, of course, arose from the blessings of its annual overflow spread broadcast over its banks by fertilizing the seed of the sower, producing abundant crops for the sickle of the reaper, and thus making glad the heart of man. It is stated that the Arabs in the present day consider it a delicious privilege to slake their thirst with the salubrious and agreeable waters of the river, and I have read that they will even artificially excite thirst to indulge in the pleasure of imbibing refreshing and satisfying draughts from the "holy stream" The general Pescennius Niger is said to have cried to his soldiers: "What! crave you for wine, when you have the water of the Nile to drink?" Homer is stated to have said, no doubt referring poetically to its regular and fertilizing overflow: "The Nile flows down from heaven." The Egyptians say that "If Mahomet had tasted the waters of the Nile, he would have prayed God to make him immortal, that he might have enjoyed them for ever".

The Nile geography:

The river has a total length of considerably over 3,000 miles, and is remarkable among the rivers of the world from the fact that for about the last 1,500 miles of its flow it receives no tributary none, in fact, after the Albara or Tacazze. The consequence is that, by the time it reaches the sea, its volume is considerably reduced by evaporation, and from the large quantity of water used along its banks for irrigation and other purposes. The river is formed of two principal branches, the Bahr-el-Azrek, or Blue Nile, and the Bahr-el-Abiad, or White Nile, the latter of which is the main branch or true Nile. It receives also, as tributary rivers, the Atbara or Tacazze before mentioned, with the Sobat and Asua on the east side; and the Bahr-el-Ga-zelle on the west; besides other smaller and less important streams. Its waters are discharged into the Mediterranean through several mouths, the two principal of which are known as the Rosetta and Damietta mouths the first named being to the west and the other to the east. The principal island formed by the divisions of the river being shaped like the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet, takes the name of Delta; and the Nile is doubtless the river which first suggested what is now a technical name for all similar formations at the mouths of rivers.

The Nile

The rise and overflow of the Nile caused by the seasonal rains of the interior, has been for ages noted for its regularity. The rise commences about midsummer, reaches its greatest height at the autumnal equinox, and has again subsided by Christmas; leaving the land highly enriched by the fertilizing sediment of red earth brought down by the Abyssinian tributaries and deposited by the river. The land can then be worked and the crops planted. The rise and fall of the river is watched with great anxiety by the inhabitants of the Nile valley. At intervals along its banks river gauges, or nilometers, are fixed, upon which the variations of the river are duly recorded.

The early expedition aross the Nile:

Nearly five centuries before the Christian era, the first great African traveller, Herodotus, writing about the Nile, said: "Respecting the nature of this river, I was unable to gain any information, either from the priests or any one else. I was very desirous, however, of learning from them why the Nile, beginning at the summer solstice, fills and overflows for a hundred days; and when it has nearly completed this number of days, falls short in its stream and retires; so that it continues low all the winter, until the return of the summer solstice".

Seneca writes that the Emperor Nero sent an exploring expedition under two centurions with military force to explore the countries along the banks of the Astapus or White River, and to search for the Nile's sources. They passed down the river a considerable distance until immense marshes were met with. They forced their way through, and continued their journey southward, until the river was seen" tumbling down or issuing out between the rocks". They were then obliged to turn back and declare their mission a failure. The centurions are stated to have brought back with them a map of the districts they had passed through, for the information of the Imperial Nero.

This early expedition succeeded in penetrating about 800 Roman miles south of Meroe that is to say, reaching three or four degrees north latitude. The place where water was seen "tumbling down from between the rocks" was probably the Fola or Mekade cataract, again discovered in our own day by the late General Gordon. The river here rushes through a narrow ravine, over and between rocks of from thirty to forty feet high. These falls are stated to be the only insurmountable obstacle to the navigation of the Nile, for vessels of considerable size, from the Mediterranean to the Albert Lake.

About seventy years later, during the Second Century, we find Claudius Ptolemy, a celebrated geographer and astrologer of Alexandria, writing about the Nile and its sources. He tells us that the "holy stream" rises some twelve degrees south of the equator, in a number of streams that flow into two lakes, situated east and west of each other; from which, in turn, issue two rivers; these afterwards unite and form the Nile. Ptolemy also mentions that in the interior of Africa were some mountains which he called "Selenes Oros" generally translated "Mountains of the Moon".

Following in the steps of Ptolemy, come the Arab geographers, and they are stated to have practically adopted all his theories and geographical notions.

Later on we find that the Portugese travelers obtained a considerable amount of information regarding the geography of the interior of Africa. They appear to have had some knowledge of the existence of several large lakes in the centre of the continent, and in some of their early maps these lakes find a place.

It appears to have been known to the ancients that the Nile proper is formed of two principal branches, which join and form one river close to where the town of Khartoum (or its ruin) now stands; but beyond this, as we have seen, little authentic information has been handed down.

The landscape around the valley

In the year 1770, Bruce gave his attention to the Blue Nile. He was enabled to locate the sources of that branch of the river among the mountains and highlands of Abyssinia, near Lake Dembea. In 1 788, the African Association was founded, and in furtherance of its objects much information was obtained of the geography of the "Dark Continent". In 1827, M. Linant, a French traveller, passed up the White Nile to a considerable distance above its junction with the Blue Nile branch. About the year 1840 two Egyptian naval officers headed an expedition, fitted out by Mahommed Ali, the then ruler of Egypt; they forced their way through the terrible marshes to within 3° 4'" of the equator; but were, like the expedition of the Emperor Nero, at last obliged to turn back.

In 1831, the old African Association was merged into the Royal Geographical Society, and from then, right down to the present time, our knowledge of the Nile and its sources has been perfecting itself.

While resting on the plateau land above the south-west corner of the Albert Lake, on the 25th of May, 1888, Stanley's attention was called to a towering mountain height capped with snow, which, from where he stood, lay about fifty miles away to the south-east. Twelve months later on his homeward journey, after crossing the Semliki River, which he found flowing into the south end of the Albert Lake, Stanley found himself following a range of hills, the tops of which towering up some 19,000 feet high, were covered with perpetual snow. This melting under the action of a tropical sun, poured its volumes of water into the Semliki River at his feet, which in turn conveyed it thence to the Albert Lake and onwards to swell the torrent of Father Nile.

Stanley writes: "Little did we imagine it, but the results of our journey from the Albert Nyanza to .... where I turned away from the newly-discovered lake in 1876, established beyond a doubt that the snowy mountain, which bears the native name of Ruwenzori or Ruwenjura, is identical with what the ancients called "Mountains of the Moon".

"Note what Scheadeddin, an Arabian geographer of the Fifteenth Century writes: (From the Mountains of the Moon the Egyptian Nile takes its rise. It cuts horizontally the equator in its course north. Many rivers come from this mountain and unite in a great lake. From this lake comes the Nile, the most beautiful and greatest of the rivers of all the earth)".

The Nile at Luxor:

At Luxor the Nile valley is about ten miles across. The escarpment of the desert plateau, which elsewhere forms a fringing cliff of nearly uniform elevation, here breaks into cone-shaped peaks rising to a height of seventeen hundred feet above the level plain, which in January is already waving with luxuriant crops the barley coming into ear, the lentils and vetches in flower and the tall sugar-canes beginning to turn yellow. The plain is dotted with Arab villages, each raised above the level of the inundation on its tell, or mound of ancient débris, and embosomed in a grove of date-palms mingled with the quaint dom-palms characteristic of the Thebiad. Animal life is far more abundant than in Italy or France. We note the camels and buffaloes feeding everywhere, tethered in the fields; the great soaring kites floating in the air; the graceful hoopoos, which take the place of our English thrushes; the white paddy-birds fishing on the sand-banks of the river; gay king-fishers, among them the fish-tiger pied in black and white; the sun-bird, a bee-eater clad in a brilliant coat of green and gold; the crested lark, the greater and lesser owl, as well as water-wagtails, pipits, chats and warblers, numerous swifts and swallows, with an occasional vulture, eagle, cormorant, pelican, or crane. The jackal is common; and the wolf, the hyena, and the fox are not unfrequently heard, but seldom seen.

Nile Cruise:

- In Luxor: In your Nile Cruise in Luxor you will visit The Valley of the Kings, The Valley of the queens, Colossi of Memnon, and more..

- In Edfu: You can visit the Karnak Temple, (the Temple of Temples). It is the largest place of worship ever built. Its ancient name Ipet-isut means “the most sacred of places.” The temple, or, more correctly, the complex of temples, was built over more than two thousand years by generation after generation of pharaohs. Within the complex, the great “Hypostyle Hall” is an incredible forest of giant pillars covering an area larger than the whole of Notre Dame Cathedral. Also you can visit the temple of Luxor, built by Amenhotep III and Ramses II for ritual and festivals and dedicated to the god Amun.

- In Aswan: Here in Aswan the temple of horus, the most beautiful one of all the Nile Temples. Note, Horus or Haroeris was the falcon headed solar war god. Also in Aswan you can enjoy with the great dam (high dam of Aswan). One of the most famous monuments in Egypt is the temple of Philae on the island of Agilka in Aswan.

Minnesota River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:44:00 +0000

Geography:

The Minnesota River is one of the 20 most endangered waterways in America. The Minnesota River begins in South Dakota, meanders through southwestern and south central Minnesota, and empties into the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. It drains over 15,000 square miles and contains all or parts of 37 counties.

History:

The first white men known to have navigated the Minnesota were Le Sueur and his party of miners, who entered its mouth in a felucca and two row boats on September 2Oth, 1700, and reached the mouth of the Blue Earth on the 3oth of the same month. The next spring he carried with him down the river a boat-load of blue or green shale which he had dug from the bluffs of the Blue Earth, in mistake for copper ore . Much more profitable, doubtless, he found the boat-load of beaver and other Indian furs, which he took with him at the same time. This is the first recorded instance of freight transportation on the Minnesota river .

In the winter of 1819-20, a deputation of Lord Selkirk's Scotch colony, who had settled near the site of Winnipeg, traveled through Minnesota to Prairie du Chien, a journey of about a thousand miles, to purchase seed wheat. On April I5th, 1820, they started back in three Mackinaw boats loaded with 200 bushels of wheat, 100 bushels of oats, and 30 bushels of peas. During the month of May they ascended the Minnesota from its mouth to its source, and, dragging their loaded boats over the portage on rollers, descended the Red river to their homes, which they reached early in June.

The first steamboat to enter the Minnesota river was the Virginia on May loth, 1823. She was not a large vessel, being only 118 feet long by 22 feet wide, and she only ascended as far as Mendota and Fort Snelling, which during the period between the years 1820 and 1848 were about the only points of importance in the territory now embraced within our state. Hence all the boats navigating the upper Mississippi in those days had to enter the Minnesota to reach these terminal points.

Notes by famous men:

In July 1823 William H. Keating noted that in the first 130 miles of the Minnesota River upstream from its confluence with the Mississippi River “the bed of the river is chiefly sand.”

Keating was told by Dakotas about the “River where Blue Earth is Gathered” (Makato Osa Watapa), which made up two thirds of the Minnesota River flow. Upon crossing the Cottonwood River, Keating noted that it had “a white sandy bottom.”

Minnesota River Majors Tributaries:

The Minnesota River is the largest tributary of the Mississippi River in Minnesota, crossing the state from its headwaters on the Coteau des Prairies in South Dakota to its confluence with the Mississippi river.

And that is list of the Minnesota River Tributaries:

Pomme de Terre River Little Minnesota River Redwood River Little Cottonwood River Rush River Lac qui Parle River Whetstone River Yellow Bank River Credit River Blue Earth River Cottonwood River Yellow Medicine River Blue Earth River.

Minnesota River Floods:

The Minnesota River valley suffered from Several severe floods occurred from 1880 to 1920.

No severe flooding occurred from 1920 through 1940. But during 1950 and 1960 Severe flooding occurred. Severe flooding occurred in 1980 and 1990.

The Agricultural:

Agriculture during the early years was at the subsistence level, but as farmers cleared land, they increased the acreage devoted to crops. In 1858, wheat was shipped commercially from the state for the first time. Extreme climate conditions in Minnesota fostered the development of hardy crop strains and other innovations. German immigrant Wandelin Grimm developed an alfalfa acclimatized to severe Minnesota winters and superior to other forage plants for the Northwest. Peter M. Gideon moved to Minnesota in 1853 and spent forty-five years developing fruit, including the Wealthy apple, that could withstand the cold weather. When the hard spring wheat from the Minnesota prairie could not compete with the winter wheat grown further south, the traditional flat grinding process was replaced with smooth millstones that ran more slowly, minimizing heat discoloration and bran specks. Other techniques to improve processes and profits followed, including scientific methods of testing wheat and flour and new procedures for bleaching. Works such as The Earth Brought Forth: A History of Minnesota Agriculture to 1885 (1949) and Grimm Alfalfa and Its Utilization in the Northwest (1911) describe the early years of agriculture.

Wheat was king in Minnesota from the 1880s to about 1920; it was shipped by rail and boat to markets all over the eastern U.S. and Europe. Minneapolis was known as the “Mill City,” producing more flour than any other city in the world. The early mills -- General Mills and Pillsbury -- evolved into multinational conglomerates. Important publications include The Northwestern Miller (published in Minneapolis 1873-1973), The Decline of Northwestern Flour Milling, by Victor G. Pickett and Roland S. Vaile (1933), and The Medal of Gold: A Story of Industrial Achievement, by William C. Edgar (1925). The Minnesota wheat crop was 2 million bushels in 1860, and reached 95 million in 1890.

Colorado River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 02:17:00 +0000

Geography:

The Colorado River is formed by the junction of the Grand and Green. The Grand River has its source in the Rocky Mountains, five or six miles west of Long's Peak, in latitude 40 11' and longitude 105 43' approximately. A group of little alpine lakes, that receive their waters directly from perpetual snow-banks, discharge into a common reservoir, known as Grand Lake, a beautiful sheet of water. Its quiet surface reflects towering cliffs and crags of granite on its eastern shore; and stately pines and firs stand on its western margin.

Old map for Colorado River basin

The Green River heads near Fremont's Peak, in the Wind River Mountains, in latitude 43 15' and longitude 109 45' approximately. This river, like the last, has its sources in alpine lakes, fed by everlasting snows. Thousands of these little lakes, with deep, cold, emerald waters, are embosomed among the crags of the Rocky Mountains. These streams, born in the cold, gloomy solitudes of the upper mountain-region, have a strange, eventful history as they pass down through gorges, tumbling in cascades and cataracts, until they reach the hot, arid plains of the Lower Colorado, where the waters that were so clear above empty as turbid floods into the Gulf of California.

The mouth of the Colorado is in latitude 31 53' and longitude 115. The Green River is larger than the Grand, and is the upper continuation of the Colorado. Including this river, the whole length of the stream is about two thousand miles. The region of country drained by the Colorado and its tributaries is about eight hundred miles in length, and varies from three hundred to five hundred in width, containing about three hundred thousand square miles, an area larger than all the New England and Middle States, with Maryland and Virginia added, or as large as Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri.

There are two distinct portions of the basin of the Colorado. The lower third is but little above the level of the sea, though here and there ranges of mountains rise to an altitude of from two to six thousand feet. This part of the valley is bounded on the north by a line of cliffs, which present a bold, often vertical step, hundreds or thousands of feet to the table-lands above.

The upper two-thirds of the basin rises from four to eight thousand feel above the level of the sea. This high region, on the east, north, and west, is set with ranges of snow-clad mountains, attaining an altitude above the sea varying from eight to fourteen thousand feet. All winter long, on its mountain-crested rim, snow falls, filling the gorges, half burying the forests, and covering the crags and peaks with a mantle woven by the winds from the waves of the sea a mantle of snow. When the summer-sun comes, this snow melts, and tumbles down the mountain-sides in millions of cascades. Ten million cascade brooks unite to form ten thousand torrent creeks; ten thousand torrent creeks unite to form a hundred rivers beset with cataracts; a hundred roaring rivers unite to form the Colorado, which rolls, a mad, turbid stream, into the Gulf of California.

Weather:

In April and May the weather can vary from day time highs in the 60's and 70's to night time lows in the 30's, 40's to the odd snow storm. These storms usually pass through in 24 - 36 hours and then the weather fines up again for the rest of the trip. In June and July the day time temperatures move up to the 70's - 90's with night time lows in the high 40's - 60's. It is unusual for it to rain during this season but the rains that do come periodically can be substantial. There is a bug season on the Colorado River some years and for this reason we advise tents with screens to assure a peaceful night's sleep for all.

Alarcon's ships struggling with the great bore of the Colorado (1540)

The lakes around the colorado river:

There are eight major dams located along the river back up extensive bodies of water to create desert lakes such as Havasu, Squaw, Moovalya, and the tule areas of Martinez and Ferguson lakes.

The water in larger lake basins gets rough on windy days and many boaters take shelter in coves found along the shores. However, boaters should beware of becoming trapped in the path of flash flood waters rushing down the washes into the coves during rare, but sudden, rainstorms.

Dams and Bridges:

Dams should make you think twice—danger. Stay away from spillways, outlets, and siphons. Boats approaching dams from upstream have gone over the spillway with disastrous results. The downstream side can be turbulent, causing loss of control that may draw a boat into the dam spillway.

Most dams have buoys and log booms or cables stretched across the water on the up and downstream sides. The booms or cables may be difficult to see even in daylight. Cables on a dam approach can be suddenly lethal if not seen.

All Colorado River bridges have ample clearance for most pleasure boats, although local information may be advisable in a few cases. Many bridges are built on pilings that restrict channels to a narrow passageway. Fatalities have resulted from boats striking such pilings or being carried against them by the current. When running a narrow passage near a bridge, slow down and be alert for debris that tends to gather around pilings.

Colorado river vacations throughout the history:

In the 1800 pioneers ventured over the high mountain passes to settle as farmers, loggers and ranchers. In the 1900s, more residents and tourists came to the picturesque county in northern Colorado. Today, a new wave of settlers is pouring into Winter Park, Fraser, Granby, Grand Lake and Kremmling to ski, hike and bike the mountains as well as to enjoy worldclass fishing and golf. To satisfy the growing demand for housing, most of which is in the second home market, new developments have been built in the past few years, as the county’s open spaces, proximity to Denver, world-class recreation and relatively cheap land prices have caught the eye of real estate developers as well as vacation home buyers.

Old pictures for the Colorado river

Grand County:

From the high plains of the Colorado River Valley in the west to the alpine forests in the east, Grand County’s classic landscape has charmed visitors and residents for more than two hundred years.

Ute and Arapahoe tribes once frequented the area’s hot springs and the deep body of water they called Spirit Lake, named for its morning fog.

If you are looking for the next successful area in the mountains look no further than Grand County explains Jerry D. Jones. His company is the master developer behind the upscale Orvis Shorefox subdivision planned for Granby as well as the Grand Elk subdivision nearby. “People say they want a place that is reminiscent of what Colorado used to be and that is Grand County—wide open spaces, expansive views and tons of amenities,” says Jones, who is also a veteran Colorado ski resort executive.

Alcohol and boat accidents:

Alcohol is a major contributing factor in many boating accidents, injuries, and fatalities on the Colorado River. Studies indicate that the hazardous side-effects of alcohol are more pronounced when operating a boat. Alcohol, combined with wind, heat, boat noise, vibration, wave action, and sun-glare, has an adverse influence on your judgment and response time in boating. Do not drink and operate a boat.

Colorado River Compacts:

The Colorado River has been subjected to extensive negotiations and litigation. As a result, a complex set of federal laws, compacts, court decisions, treaties, state laws and other agreements has been developed, known as the “Law of the River”. Principal documents forming the Law of the River are:

- Colorado River Compact of 1922 - Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1928 - Mexican Treaty of 1944 - Upper Colorado River Basin Compact of 1948 - Colorado River Storage Project Act of 1956 - 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Arizona v. California - Colorado River Basin Project Act of 1968 - 1970 Criteria for Coordinated Long-Range Operation of Colorado River Reservoirs - Minute 242 of the 1973 International Boundary and Water Commission - Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Act of 1974 - Grand Canyon Protection Act of 1992 - 2001 Colorado River Interim Surplus Guidelines.

The Colorado River Compact of 1922 says the term “Upper Basin” means those parts of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming from which waters naturally drain into the Colorado River system above Lee Ferry. The term “Lower Basin” means those parts of the states of Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah from which waters naturally drain into the Colorado River System below Lee Ferry. It further states the term “the Upper Division” means the states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, and term “the Lower Division” means the states of Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico.

The Mississippi River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 03:21:00 +0000

Geography:

From its headwaters in upper Minnesota at Lake Itasca, the Mississippi runs 3700 km to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico, some 145 km below New Orleans, Louisiana. The Mississippi River drainage basin is the fourth largest in the world, over 3,60,000 km2, and includes 41% of the contiguous United States (portions of 31 states) and parts of two Canadian provinces (Table 1). The Mississippi basin stretches from the Rocky Mountains in the West to the Appalachian Mountains in the East. Tributaries of the Mississippi include the second and third largest rivers in the United States, the Ohio and Missouri, as well as numerous smaller, yet still imposing rivers. The Missouri River stretches from near St. Louis, Missouri, to the northwest into the Rocky Mountains. The Ohio flows from the northeast, joining with the Mississippi near Cairo at the southern tip of the state of Illinois. The Upper Mississippi River begins near the Canadian border and flows south to its confluence with the Ohio.

Mississippi River Basin

The river can be divided into two segments: the upper Mississippi from its headwaters through Minneapolis and St. Louis to the Ohio, 2120 km, and the lower Mississippi, from the Ohio to the Gulf, 1580km. At a distance of 485 km above the Mississippi's mouth at the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi flows are shared with its principal distributary, the Atchafalaya River. This division results in the Atchafalaya receiving, on an average, approximately 30 percent of the flow at that latitude while the remaining 70 percent is carried by the Mississippi. From Lake Itasca (440 m above MSL) to Minneapolis, the upper Mississippi meanders through glacial outwash, plains and moraines. From Minneapolis south it flows through valleys with well-defined floodplains and valley walls. Just north of the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi, the alluvial valley of the Mississippi River begins. This valley of 90,650 km2 falls from an elevation of 91.5 m above MSL at Cairo to sea level at the Gulf of Mexico some 1580 river km instant. Between Cairo and Vicksburg, it is joined by the Arkansas River. The valley varies in width from 32 km to 129 km across with an average width of 73 km. At Vicksburg, Mississippi, 874 km to the south of Cairo, the mean annual flow is nominally 16,510 m3.s-1. (Galloway) The climate along the river is continental with annual rainfall maximums varying from 200 cm in the south to 110 cm in the north.

The Mississippi River flows past ten states on its journey from the headwaters in northern Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. Activities on the river upstream can affect the quantity and quality of the river downstream. Likewise, activities by a state on one side affect the river uses of a state on the other side.

The same holds true for spills of oil or hazardous substances. Suice the river is constantly flowing, any river segment adjacent to or downstream from a spill could be affected by that spill. The river is thus a shared resource, requiring dependable stewardship and coordination by the bordering states. The coordination of quick notification and response by all parties is essential to minimize the damage from hazardous substance spills.

History:

Without question America's greatest river, the Mississippi, has made major contributions to the physical and economic growth of the nation. It is a navigation artery of great importance to the nation's transportation system, carrying an every-growing commerce. Coursing through the heart of America, it supplies water for the cities and industries that have located along its banks. More and more the Mississippi's importance is emphasized as America continues to grow. This great river is, truly, one of the nation's outstanding assets. Uncontrolled, it would be just as great a liability.

Since the early nineteenth century, many have attempted to harness the Mississippi River, with hopes of utilizing the river for great benefit. As early as the 1830s, the Federal government was dynamiting rock and removing snags from the river in order to make the depth of the river adequate for boat travel when the water level was low. After the Civil War, it was evident that a change was needed. Captain Frank Fugina, an experienced river man and boat captain saw a great need for improvement. “…Those of us who lived on the river and followed steamboating as a vocation for many years, and who have noticed channel conditions during high and low water stages, know very well that the packet boats had a hard time navigating the Upper Mississippi in the early days, except in times of high water.”1 At the time of writing this article, the river was a winding and snaking entity, complete with rapids, rocky bottoms, vegetation growth in the river bottoms and miles and miles of sloughs. Each section of the river was as unique as the one prior, making travel tenuous and inconsistent.

By 1878, Congress had authorized a four-and-a-half foot channel project for the Upper Mississippi to aid the rafting business and packet boats. The four-and-a-half foot channel stretched from the mouth of the Ohio River to Minneapolis, and was achieved by dredging and constructing wing and closing dams, instead of blasting rock from the channel. Narrowing the width of the river to eight hundred feet, wing and closing dams were also used to deepen the channel by scouring. In 1907, Congress authorized the construction of a sixfoot channel from Saint Louis to Minneapolis. These projects greatly aided river traffic, increasing traffic substantially, as well as speeding up the river current, which aided in reducing pollution, especially in large metropolitan areas.

These projects did not meet the desired results everywhere. Low water still existed in many places and in times of low water, so low that people could walk across the river, many tows were grounded and river travel was extremely difficult. Many other problems persisted as well. The cities along the river, many of them once booming because of river traffic and commerce, were now dying a slow death due to a lack of outside income. A new channel was needed to boost the amount of river traffic and the amount of shipping tonnage. The nine-foot channel project was seen as the salvation needed for the river, the towns, the people and their livelihoods. Trempealeau, Wisconsin was one of these towns that needed the nine-foot channel to survive.

The Mississippi River has always been a threat to the security of the valley through which it flows. Garciliaso de la Vega, in his history of the expedition begun by DeSoto, described the first recorded flood of the Mississippi as severe and of prolonged duration, beginning about March 10, 1543, and cresting about 40 days later. By the end of May the river had returned to its banks, having been in flood for about 80 days. Since that time, explorers, traders, farmers, men of commerce, and engineers have known ,, sometimes too well the Mississippi in flood.

Mississippi River Majors Tributaries:

Minnesota River

- Blue Earth River - Chippewa River (Minnesota) - Cottonwood River (Minnesota) - Credit River (Minnesota) - Lac qui Parle River - Little Cottonwood River - Little Minnesota River - Pomme de Terre River (Minnesota) - Redwood River - Rush River (Minnesota) - Whetstone River - Yellow Bank River - Yellow Medicine River

Missouri River

- Amite (Louisiana, Mississippi) - Red (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana) - Big Black (Mississippi) - Yazoo (Mississippi, Louisiana) - Arkansas (Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas) - St. Francis (Missouri, Arkansas) - Hatchie (Tennessee, Mississippi) - Ohio (Pennsylvainia, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois - Big Muddy (Illinois) - Kaskaskia (Illinois) - Missouri (Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri) - Illinois (Illinois) - Des Moines (Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri) - Iowa (Iowa) - Rock (Wisconsin, Illinois) - Wapsipinicon (Iowa, Minnesota) - Wisconsin (Wisconsin) - Upper Iowa (Iowa, Minnesota) - Black (Wisconsin) - Chippewa (Wisconsin) - St. Croix (Wisconsin, Minnesota) - Minnesota and Big Stone Lake (South Dakota, Minnesota)

Ohio River

- Allegheny River - Guyandotte River - Kanawha River - Little Kanawha River - Monongahela River - Muskingum River - Tennessee River - Wabash River Watershed - Youghiogheny River

Des Moines River

- Beaver Creek (Des Moines River) - Competine Creek (Des Moines River) - Raccoon River - White Breast Creek

Upper Iowa River

- Bear Creek (Upper Iowa River) - Pine Creek (Canoe Creek) - Pine Creek (Upper Iowa River) - Trout River (Iowa) - Upper Iowa River - Waterloo Creek (Upper Iowa River)

Zumbro River

The Mississippi River Delta:

The Mississippi River Delta has been laid down by an intricate system of distributary channels. During the last 11,000 years, sea level has risen 350 ft (106.7 m), and the grade of the river has flattened. Channel sands are laterally restricted to major distributary channels, or “passes.” The modern Mississippi River Delta has been deposited during the past 6,000 years in four major areas. New Orleans lies within the Mississippi River Deltaic Plain and is located between Lake Pontchartrain on the north and the Mississippi River to the south. Its geology is highly variable both in the lateral and vertical extents. Much of the city is underlain by thick deposits of dark organic clays mixed with wood, roots, and other organic materials that resulted from extensive marshes and swamps formerly characterizing the area. This material is of a very low density and generally has high water content. It is actively decaying where development has lowered the water table, leading to areas of significant subsidence throughout the city. The St. Bernard and Plaquemines components of the Mississippi River Delta are its youngest features. They deposit nutrient-rich silt, which promotes the growth of freshwater swamps. Most of the St. Bernard Delta has subsided below sea level (Saucier, 1994).

The River Valley Climate:

Mississippi's moderate climate encourages outdoor activity year-round. The state experiences a noticeable change of seasons, but temperatures remain mild and pleasant throughout the year. January's average is 50 degrees; the summer's high reaches into the 90s.

The speed limit on Mississippi interstate highways is 70 mph, unless otherwise posted. The state highway maximum speed limit is 65 mph on four-lane divided highways and 55 mph on two-lane highways. Crash helmets, approved by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, are required for all persons traveling by motorcycle/motor scooter. Mandatory seat belt laws require that drivers and front-seat passengers wear seat belts. All children eight years of age and under must be placed in an age appropiate restraint or protection device.

Mississippi River Floods:

The most significant floods on the Mississippi River result from regional rainfall and snowmelt events that cause slow rise on the rivers and extend for days or weeks. Because of the influence of tributary flow (including the major tributaries, the Ohio, Missouri and Arkansas Rivers), the magnitude of flooding increases moving downstream from the headwaters to the mouth. Short, intense rainfall events can cause flash floods or quick rise and fall floods on the tributaries but do not normally affect the mainstem.

Mississippi River Floods

Floods have were part of the earliest recorded history of the Mississippi. In 1543, explorer Hernando Desoto encountered a flood on the Mississippi near Memphis, Tennessee that extended over 40 days. The founders of New Orleans in began to erect local levees in the early 1700’s to protect against floods. Over bank flow was and continues to be a natural occurrence in the bottomlands and alluvial valleys of the river but only became a problem as settlement occurred along the river and within the floodplains. Floods and flood damages significant enough to merit regional or national attention occurred on the Mississippi in 1849, 1850, 1882, 1912, 1913, 1927, 1936 1950, 1973, 1993 and 2001. The largest flood flow recorded on the lower Mississippi was 64,500 m3.s-1. The 1993 flood flow on the upper Mississippi exceeded 28,000 m3.s-1.

Today, when a natural or human induced event is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of a state or local government, it is designated by the President of the United States as disaster. Prior to the use of Presidential designations, floods that displaced thousands of people or covered large land areas for extended periods generally were labeled disasters by the media and the government. The Flood of 1927 on the lower Mississippi was the flood that brought national attention to the need for federal involvement in flood damage reduction. This event devastated the levee protection system and resulted in flooding of over 67,340 km2 of land, displaced more than 600,000 people from their homes, took over 200 lives and cost over $10 billion in 1998 dollars (Barry, McCormick). A significant flood occurred in 1936 in the Ohio and lower Mississippi basins and while causing enormous damage in the Ohio passed through the lower Mississippi without significant impact. The major flood events in 1973 and 1993 similarly were passed in the lower valley without major economic disruption. The 1993 flood reached disaster proportions in the upper Mississippi (and Missouri basins). Thirty-eight deaths were attributed directly to the flood, estimates of fiscal damages ranged from $12 billion to $20 billion and over 6.6 million acres were flooded. Agriculture accounted for over half of these damages. More than 100,000 homes were damaged. Flood response and recovery operations cost more than $6 billion.

The Agricultural:

The Mississippi River is the most critical artery of the inland waterway system, supporting between 50 and 60 percent of total U.S. corn exports and 30 to 45 percent of total U.S. soybean exports. In calendar year 2002, 1.1 billion bushels of corn, 389 million bushels of soybeans, and 32 million bushels of wheat were transported to the Gulf via the Mississippi River. Over 90 percent of the corn and soybean exports from the Gulf were transported via barges on the Mississippi River.
Mississippi River Wildlife:

Mississippi is a diverse ecological mix of urban and suburban settings as well as agricultural and forested environments that serve as home to more than 2.8 million people.

Types of Wildlife in the Mississippi Valley

Accordingly, WS (Wildlife Services) works to reduce wildlife threats to human safety and property by managing wildlife-related damage such as flooding to roads, crops, and timber; depredation to the aquaculture industry; and the potential spread of disease. WS helps protect the safety of the flying public at numerous airport facilities around the state by addressing hazardous situations wildlife may cause to aircraft.

Fish-eating birds cause an estimated $5 million in losses annually to the Mississippi aquaculture industry. It is estimated that this loss would be two to three times higher if WS was not active in using nonlethal harassment methods to reduce predation. Two bird species, the double-crested cormorant and the American white pelican, account for most damage to the aquaculture industry in Mississippi. Populations of both species have increased over the last decade.

WS conducts aerial surveys of cormorant roosts in the Mississippi Delta every two weeks, from October through April. Areas of heavy cormorant concentrations are noted and aquaculture producers near these locations are notified, so they can plan appropriate harassment activities. WS specialists also educate producers about nonlethal harassment methods to disperse other species of fish-eating birds, and when necessary, help producers obtain depredation permits. WS has also begun to survey American white pelicans from the ground and the air, in order to help producers plan ahead for harassment activities.

Travel Through the Mississippi:

The Upper Mississippi American Heritage River Initiative (AHRI) includes over 60 river communities encompassing over 1200 river miles from St. Louis, MO, to the headwaters at Lake Itasca near Bemidji, MN. These cities and towns are frequently characterized as a “String of Pearls” linking the river’s rich cultural, social, and natural history. In the past, riverside communities often turned their backs on the Mississippi River. But now, these same communities are returning to the river, integrating the economic needs of transportation, agriculture, and manufacturing with the social and environmental needs of river users, recreation-dependent industries, and fish and wildlife. These river communities have successfully utilized the AHRI in their efforts to form new partnerships, which have resulted in numerous accomplishments and the development of new plans of the future of this area.

Finally, As long as people have lived along the river’s banks, the Mississippi has been an artery for trade and commerce, and it easily wins the title of America’s hardest working river. The river serves as both a source of power and drinking water. Farmers annually harvest more than 2 billion bushels of corn and soybeans from the river’s fertile floodplain. The Mississippi also serves as a permanent home for hundreds of species of wildlife, including rare fish that swam among the dinosaurs, but have been driven to the verge of extinction in less than a century. More than 300 varieties of birds use the river and its floodplain, and 260 fish species swim in the river’s waters. The river serves as a critical refuge for a multitude of wild visitors, including 40 percent of North America’s waterfowl and hundreds of bald eagles.

The Missouri River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:49:00 +0000

Geography:

The Indians called it the Smoky Water. Others have dubbed it The Big Muddy. (Milton). South Dakota environmentalist Peter Carrels, author of Uphill Against Water, once described it as “the seam that ties the region together.” In her book Roadside Geography of South Dakota, Linda Hasselstrom said it was the vein that ran through the heart of the Dakotas. And in a 1953 article praising the Pick/Sloan plan, Time magazine called it “the most useless river there is.” (Peter Carrels)

Missouri river basin

Few, if any, American rivers have been as important to our nation’s historical development as the Missouri River. From its origin at Three Forks, Montana to its confluence with the Mississippi River at St. Louis, it is the longest river (2,340 miles) in the United States. To early fur traders and entrepreneurs, the Missouri was a dark, murky, snag-infested, unpredictable, and unforgiving conduit whose mysteries challenged the most able explorers and steamboat navigators of the day.

There are Five Geographic Regions around Missouri;

- North of the Missouri River, the state is composed of Dissected Till Plains. It is the only part of Missouri ever covered by glaciers. As the glaciers "bulldozed" this region, they left behind rich soil which today grows a variety of crops including soybeans and corn. This well-watered prairie is crossed by many slow-moving rivers and streams.

- The Alluvial River Plain is also called the flood plain and is located along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Like the Till Plain, the Alluvial Plain contains rich soil. The rich soil in the Alluvial Plain was left behind by periodic floods. Kansas City and St. Louis are Missouri's two largest cities and they are located in the Alluvial Plain.

- The Osage Plains cover western Missouri. This area is mostly flat but some hills are evident. The soil in this region is not as rich as in the Dissected Till Plains. Corn and other grain crops are grown in the Osage Plains region.

- The largest land area in Missouri, the Ozark Plateau, or Ozark Highland, is a place of beauty covered with forested hills and low mountains. Under foot are many caves. The area is also known for its large springs, lakes, and clear rivers. In the southwestern corner of Missouri, the high tableland makes for great gardens and great strawberries. The St. Francois Mountains are in the southeast. This area is the highest and most rugged section of the state. Taum Sauk Mountain, the highest point in Missouri, is located in the St. Francois Mountains.

- The southern part of Missouri is the Mississippi Lowlands. This land, once swampy, has been drained to form a rich farmland suitable for growing cotton, soybeans, and rice. The southern portion of Missouri that juts into Arkansas is called the Boot Heel because of its shape.

Navigation in Missouri:

Over the decades, the lower Missouri River’s curves have been straightened, its backwater fl oodplain areas cut off, and its main channel lined with riprap. One reason for this reengineering of the river is to accommodate barge navigation. Unfortunately, channelization has destroyed a great deal of habitat along the river, pushing many species such as the piping plover, least tern, and pallid sturgeon into threatened and endangered status. Compounding the problem is bad fl ow management. Water is periodically released from the river’s dams to support a small amount of barge navigation. These releases draw down water supplies upriver, threatening habitat and recreation opportunities upstream.

In 2007, League members in Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota joined to create the Missouri River Initiative. We are working with federal and state agencies and private groups to assess the environmental challenges facing the river, and to find commonsense solutions that work for both the region’s ecology and economy. That includes restoring more natural fl ows, repairing backwater habitat along the river, and increasing opportunities for recreation.

Agricultural in Missouri Valley:

As the Missouri River has been altered, it has been separated from wetland areas. These wetlands historically fi ltered nitrogen, phosphorus, and chemicals from agricultural runoff before it reached the river. Without the river-wetland connection, more of these pollutants are now being fl ushed downstream, where they end up in the Mississippi River and contribute to the creation of a 14,000-square-mile dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

The League works at the local, state, and federal levels to improve farming practices and reduce the amount of pollutants entering the watershed. We teach farmers how to build riparian buffers along streams to soak up runoff. We are also working to strengthen federal farm policy so that it encourages farmers to retire marginal farmland, reducing erosion and preserving habitat. A key component of our approach has been the creation of a Sodsaver provision in the Farm Bill, which discourages the conversion of virgin prairie into cropland. Although this program is new and only available in portions of five Upper Missouri River states, the League is working to make sure it gets implemented as widely as possible.

History:

During the Ice Ages mountains of ice forced this majestic river out of its home bed, but in a show of fury and its own power the river cut a new channel through hundreds of feet of solid rock. Since then man has dammed it many times in many places. Man has even erected miles upon miles of enormous earthen dykes along its shoreline to guide it on its way to the sea. Through all of this the Mighty Missouri has patiently endured it all, only occasionally rising up in a fury to cut through these works of man to clearly show who is in control.

When men first tried to use the river as a highway to distant lands, they did not know the river; they did not respect the river. The result was many a boat fell victim to its power and unpredictability. The river sent mammoth sawyers hurtling into the trespassers and continually changed its character as it meandered through the prairies cutting huge chunks off the sandy banks and dropping them into the water creating new underwater sandbars. These and a host of other acts tormented these strange intruders.

The earliest Spanish explorers evidently considered the Lower Mississippi but a continuation of the Missouri, for when Coronado came into Kansas, in 1541, on his expedition from Mexico, he was told of the Missouri by the Indians. He says : "The great river of the Holy Spirit (Esperita Santo), which De Soto discovered in the country of Florida, flows through this country. The sources were not visited by us, because, according to what the Indians say, it comes from a distant country in the mountains, from that part that sheds its waters onto the plains and comes out where De Soto navigated it. This is more than 300 leagues from where it enters the sea."

The Missouri river was the same ugly, muddy, tortuous, rapid stream when first seen by the early French explorers as it is today. When, in 1673, the Jesuit explorers, Marquette and Joliet the first white men to come down the Mississippi arrived at the mouth of the Missouri, they were astonished to see, flowing in from the west, a torrent of yellow, muddy water which rushed furiously athwart the clear blue current of the Mississippi, boiling and sweeping in its course logs, branches and uprooted trees. Marquette, in his journal, says : "I have seen nothing more frightful. A mass of large trees enter with branches real floating islands. They come rushing from the mouth of the Pek-i-tan-oni, (the Indian name for Missouri, meaning, ('Muddy Water,') so impetuously that we could not without great danger expose ourselves to pass across. The Pek-i-tan-oni is a considerable stream, which, coming from the northwest, enters the Mississippi"

About the middle of the i8th century the Osages were divided into three bands: the Great Osages, the Little Osages, and the Black Dog band. The former were seated near Pappinsville, in Bates county, Mo. The Little Osages whose village will hereafter be described were on Petite-sas Plains, in Saline county, Mo., and the Black Dog band was on the Verdigris river, in the Indian Territory. The "Black Dogs" were so called from a celebrated chief a most remarkable man in stature, being nearly 7 feet tall.

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson organized an expedition to explore the American west as part of the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. The “Corps of Discovery” was led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and started up the “Big Muddy” aboard a keelboat and two pirogues on May 14, 1804. Their goal was to explore the Missouri River from the confluence with the Mississippi in St. Louis to the western headwaters, thereby establishing an overland route to the Pacific Ocean.

The Lewis and Clark expedition documented the wildlife, native peoples and landscape of what would become the heart of America. In essence, the Corps of Discovery conducted the first comprehensive scientific watershed survey of the Missouri River.

Their journey opened the door to future development that would yield great changes in the American landscape.

The dangerous around the valley:

Missouri River the most endangered river in America. There are many discusions about these dangerous which surrounding the river and that is the groups whom will be endanger directly:

1. American Indians who are concerned about the flooding and destruction of burial grounds and other sacred sites along the river and about a recent transfer of Corps lands to the tribes and the state.

2. farmers and landowners whose properties border the river and who battle erosion of shoreline and periodic flooding of croplands.

3. environmentalists who want to preserve the integrity of the plant and animal life whose existence is threatened by alteration of the river’s water flow.

4. state game biologists and fishermen who are interested in protecting and managing the populations of game fish and other wildlife.

5. marina and resort owners whose businesses are affected by the rise and fall of the water levels.

6. South Dakota communities who anticipate the need to draw from the Missouri River to serve water demands in their cities.

7. downstream barge operators who fear changes in water flow could negatively affect their livelihood.

Climate:

Missouri has a continental type of climate marked by strong seasonality. In winter, dry-cold air masses, unchallenged by any topographic barriers, periodically swing south from the northern plains and Canada. If cold air masses meet reasonably humid air, snowfall or rainfall can result. In summer, moist, warm air masses, equally unchallenged by topographic barriers, swing north from the Gulf of Mexico and can produce copious amounts of rain, either by fronts or by convectional processes. In some summers, high pressure stagnates over Missouri, creating extended droughty periods. Spring and fall are transitional seasons when abrupt changes in temperature and precipitation may occur due to successive, fast-moving fronts separating contrasting air masses.

Temperature- Because of its inland location, Missouri is subject to frequent changes in temperature. While winters are cold and summers are hot, prolonged periods of very cold or very hot weather are unusual. Occasional periods of mild, above freezing temperatures are noted almost every winter. Conversely, during the peak of the summer season, occasional periods of dry-cool weather break up stretches of hot, humid weather.

Temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (° F) are rare, but they have occurred in every section of the State. In the summer, temperatures rise to 90° F or higher on an average of 40 to 50 days in the west and north and 55 to 60 days in the southeast. Subzero temperatures are infrequent, but have occurred in every county in Missouri. On the average, there are two to five such days a year in the northern counties, and one to two days in the southern counties, although there are some winters when temperatures do not go 0° F at all.

Mean January minimum temperatures follow the northwest-to-southeast gradient, from a low of 12 in the northwest to a high of 24° F in the southeast. However, mean July maximum temperature shows hardly any geographic variation in the state. Mean July maximum temperatures have a range of only three or four degrees across the state (87 to 90° F), and the central Ozarks average somewhat cooler July temperatures than other portions of southern Missouri.

Tributaries:

Beyond the upper Yellowstone, and immediately at the foot of the maindivide of the Rocky mountains, lies the valley of the Upper Missouri and of the Three Forks. The Missouri is formed by the junction, in latitude 450 56', of the Gallatin, Madison, and Jefferson rivers, streams which take their rise in the Rocky mountains and have a general northerly course. Their order, in relative importance, is the reverse of that in which they are named above, the Gallatin being the least and the Jefferson the greatest, although the difference in size is not marked. The soil in the valley of the Three Forks is good, the grass fine, and the streams are all bordered by fringes of trees that add great beauty to the landscape.

The neighboring mountains -are well timbered, and will, therefore, furnish an abundance of lumber for the future settlers, and there is no part of the field of our exploration that on the whole presents greater natural advantages than this. Standing upon the bluff north of the junction of the three rivers, and looking to the south, the eye rests upon a charming picture of level and fertile valleys, environed by gently-sloping and grass-clad hills, and divided, to appearance, into immense parks by the hedge-like fringes of trees lining the river banks. In the distance snowy ranges of mountains fill the horizon upon all sides, and furnish the delightful landscape with a pure and appropriate setting. Below the Three Forks the Missouri flows nearly north for two and a quarter degrees of latitude, passing through the gate of the mountains and over the Great Falls, and then changes its course to nearly due east, keeping this general direction through eight degrees of longitude, ultimately bending to the southeast and mingling its waters with those of the Mississippi on their way to the Gulf of Mexico.

The tributaries of this great river, between the Platte and the Yellowstone, have been already described. Of the. branches between the Three, Forks and the Yellowstone I can speak but briefly. Of those flowing from the north and west the chief are the Sun, the Teton, Maria's river, and Milk river. The two latter are large and important rivers; but none of these were visited by my expedition. Of those which flow from the south the principal are Smith's river, the Muscleshell, and Big Dry creek. Smith's river is a mountain stream, flowing through a narrow valley, which would not be capable of supporting a large population. Its passage through the mountain gorge is marked by numerous scenes of striking and romantic beauty. The Judith rises in the Judith mountains and flows northward into the Missouri. Near its head there is a small tract of fertile country, but, as we approach the Missouri, the river becomes less important, and at the mouth there is but little water in dry seasons within its banks.

Some little doubt has arisen as to the identity of the Muscleshell. Lieutenant Mullan, of the artillery, in 1852 reached it in a journey to the southeast from Fort Benton. He describes it as a stream from two to four feet deep, and with a rapid current, and judged from its banks that, at high water, it was 120 yards in width. This so much exceeded previously conceived ideas of its size, that Lieutenant Warren concluded that Limutenant Mullan had reached the Yellowstone. Lieutenant Mullins, of the dragoons, who commanded my escort, however, crossed the Muscleshell some 50 miles below where Lieutenant Mullan saw it, and found only a stream of 30 or 40 yards in width. The day before Lieutenant Mullins reached its banks I passed its mouth and found there no running water. I think, therefore, there can be no reasonable doubt that Lieutenant Mullan was correct in saying that he had reached the Muscleshell, and that after leaving the mountains the stream gradually sinks in the earth, growing less in size and importance as it approaches the Missouri. The evidences at its mouth, however, prove that at times it must be a mighty torrent draining a vast area of country. Of the Big Dry but little is known, aside from the general fact that in the wet season it is a pretentious river and at other times but little else than a dry channel.

List of missouri river tributaries;

Amite (Louisiana, Mississippi)
Red (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana)
Big Black (Mississippi)
Yazoo (Mississippi, Louisiana)
Arkansas (Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas)
St. Francis (Missouri, Arkansas)
Hatchie (Tennessee, Mississippi)
Ohio (Pennsylvainia, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois
Big Muddy (Illinois)
Kaskaskia (Illinois)
Missouri (Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri)
Illinois (Illinois)
Des Moines (Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri)
Iowa (Iowa)
Rock (Wisconsin, Illinois)
Wapsipinicon (Iowa, Minnesota)
Wisconsin (Wisconsin)
Upper Iowa (Iowa, Minnesota)
Black (Wisconsin)
Chippewa (Wisconsin)
St. Croix (Wisconsin, Minnesota)
Minnesota and Big Stone Lake (South Dakota, Minnesota)

Floods:

Efforts to restore floodplains are complicated by our variable understanding of history and ecology; our lack of knowledge of past environmental and vegetative conditions; and our differing viewpoints of what is natural, what the role of humans is in the ecosystem, and what the desirable restored state is. Managers are challenged to decide how to restore native vegetation and hydrologic regimes in the Mississippi and Missouri River floodplains because they are among the most altered ecosystems in North America.

Missouri River north of St. Louis

Long before Europeans set foot in North America, humans were modifying their environment with fire, agriculture, husbandry of wild game, and cultivation of native plants. Before 1000 A.D., Native Americans in the eastern North America were farming the floodplains, where they grew large fields of corn and other crops (e.g., up to 3,000 acres). Their main villages were situated along rivers and major tributaries. Agricultural production of beans, corn, and squash allowed Native Americans to establish more permanent villages with larger populations. For example, from about 700 to 1200 A.D., the city of Cahokia along the Mississippi River near present day St. Louis grew to dominate culture and commerce in the Southeast and Midwest (population estimates range from 20,000 to 40,000). The city covered 6 mi2 and was surrounded by extensive crop fields. A two-mile timber palisade of 20,000 oak and hickory trees surrounded the city center. Collapse of the civilization in the 1400s is attributed to resource depletion, disease, crop failures, and social unrest.

Although humans have modified floodplain vegetation for millennia, the greatest transformation of the Lower Missouri and Upper Mississippi Rivers has occurred in the past 100 years. Initial efforts to improve navigation on these rivers involved the removal of snags and the dredging of sand bars and reefs during the 19th century. Not until the early- to mid-1900s did Congress authorize and fund programs to channelize these rivers by building wing dams, pile and rock dikes, impoundments, and levees to achieve a constant channel width and depth for navigation and flood control. Meanwhile, the ecology of these riverine habitats was greatly altered by the new hydrologic regimes and river dynamics. Separating the river from its floodplain by building levees and blocking side channels changed the nature of riverine flora and fauna by modifying the frequency and impact of floods. Forest clearing and conversion to agriculture have eliminated up to 95% of bottomland forests in the Missouri and Mississippi basins. Additionally, urban sprawl is a relatively new factor causing significant changes in floodplain ecosystems, and is being recognized as a major national threat to our natural heritage.

The Great Floods of 1993 and 1995 destroyed levees and ruined farmland by scouring fields or by depositing sands. The floods brought national attention to the declining quality and productivity of floodplains and the way in which human modifications of these environments has intensified or exacerbated flood events and flood damage. Post-flood studies have recognized the value of mature floodplain forests for protecting levees and providing temporary flood water storage. In Missouri, public agencies have been acquiring lands that were once prime farmland but have been rendered non-tillable by the Great Floods. These agencies desire to restore more natural floodplain vegetation and hydrologic regimes on these lands.

Historically, oaks were significant components of native floodplain forests in the Missouri and Mississippi watersheds. Cottonwood, silver maple, willow, and other flood-tolerant species dominated low elevation, flood prone areas. Oaks, hickories, and walnuts persisted on the better drained soils on slightly higher elevations in the bottoms. Portions of floodplains disturbed by frequent scouring and deposition were invaded by colonizing willows, cottonwoods, and other wetland shrub and herbaceous species. Annual and semi-annual floods created a mosaic of vegetation that was diverse in age, structure, and composition. Analyses of General Land Office surveys conducted in the early 1800s have shown that mature forests were once common along the lower Missouri River. Oak, black walnut, and hickory were common in these diverse forests. Today these species are largely absent in the forest remnants. Bottom land prairies, savannas, and woodlands were prevalent along certain stretches of the Lower Missouri and Upper Mississippi Rivers. These communities were probably artifacts of various combinations of anthropogenic fire, flood regime, and geomorphology. In the 19th century, prairies covered 26% to 46% of the bottoms for 200 miles upstream of Boonville, MO, and in the Mississippi River floodplain from St. Louis north into southeastern Iowa. Extensive prairies dominated the river bottoms north toward the Falls of St. Anthony and west to the Rocky Mountains. The lower Mississippi south of St. Louis was heavily forested with mature, closed-canopied forests.

Wildlife:

A large river ecosystem, like the Missouri River, can support an abundance of wildlife. It was once home to a diverse array of birds, fish, and other wildlife that found suitable habitat in its channels, backwaters, wetlands, and adjacent uplands.

Shorebirds, like the least tern and piping plover, depend on the Missouri River for nesting habitat on which to breed and raise their young. Their preferred habitat is sparsely vegetated sandbars along rivers or lakes and reservoir shorelines. The serious decline of these bird species is directly related to the current operation of the system and the elimination of habitat necessary for their survival.

Shorebirds along the Missouri river

The large reservoirs formed by the six dams on the river have greatly changed the character of the river and the fish and wildlife it supports.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service received a new Biological Assessment from the Corps of Engineers (Corps) on November 3, 2003. The Biological Opinion of 2000 is still in effect. The Corps’ proposed action incorporates a majority of the elements of the original 2000 Biological Opinion’s RPA, including sedimentation studies, system unbalancing, and habitat creation and rehabilitation. The proposal does not include the environmental flow releases from Gavins Point Dam, which were described in RPA II.A (i.e. spring rise and summer low flow).

In lieu of these flow changes, the Corps proposes to accelerate habitat formation, implement adaptive management including a research/monitoring/evaluation /incorporation into operations component that includes a series of flow tests. Additionally, the Corps is proposing a modification of the Ft. Peck test.

Travel:

Attraction visitors to Missouri River Country factored into six different attraction groups primarily based on geography. This suggests that visitors are more likely to visit attractions located near each other. It is highly recommended that employees of the attractions make it a habit to “sell” other attractions nearby. More than likely, visitors will heed the advice of locals. If visitors are encouraged to visit other attractions in the area and then pursue those attractions, it could likely extend their stay (especially for the 64% who are flexible in their plans). Besides simply recommending other attractions, a technique that works well is that of package pricing and discounts when visiting more than one site. Many people will visit a site if it is part of a package or special deal even if it originally was not in their plans. It is a marketing technique that brings more visitors to the sites (so the attraction wins) and the visitor feels like they are getting a deal (so the visitor wins). Each individual attraction group has the potential of establishing networking relationships among all of the other attractions within an area in order to increase visitation and length of stay.

The nature in Missouri river

Missouri River Country has an interesting mix of visitors to their attractions. While the majority is still from out-of-state, one-third came from within Montana. This represents a higher percent of in-state visitation to a region than any of the other travel regions and provides opportunities for promotion.

In-state visitors were more likely to come from Hill, Custer, and Yellowstone Counties. It is recommended that promotional efforts be aimed at the eastern and north-central part of the state. Obviously many of the in-state visitors are involved in activities centered around Fort Peck Lake. Perhaps lake conditions such as water temperature, wind conditions, hot fishing spots, and activities on the lake could be announced daily (or on weekends) on radio programs in Billings, Miles City, Havre, and Lewistown. A continual presence on the radio could encourage visitation because it is always on the minds of potential visitors.

Out-of-state visitors were most likely to come from Washington and Minnesota followed by California, Michigan and Wisconsin. This is a wide geographic spread in which to “cast the promotional net.” Any promotion to these geographic areas should be incorporated into promotions done by other regions of the state so as to maximize the dollar.

References:

The Oregon Trail; the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, By Federal Writers' Project, 1939.

Chappell (P.E.), A History of the Missouri River.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_River

The Danube River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 03:43:00 +0000

"The traveler, however, who wishes to become acquainted with the most interesting parts of the Danube, navigable by the steam-boats, will have no cause to regret this strange proceeding on the part of the Russian government. The banks of that magnificent river are wholly devoid of interest below Vidin. Its beauties commence at Belgrade ; and from Moldava to Gladova, those wild and sublime scenes occur, which I have attempted to describe in the following pages." Michael J. Quin. in September 10, 1835.

Geography of The Danube:

Geography of the Danube

The Danube River has been used as an important means of transportation of for commerce and military operations for nearly 2,000 years because it is the only major European river that flows west to east. Originating in southwestern Germany the Danube crosses through ten riparian states before discharging into the Black Sea making it the second-longest river of Europe (2,850 km). Nearly one-tenth of Europe (800,000 sq-km) is drained by the Danube Basin. The climate is considered dry receiving approximately 450 mm of rainfall per annum. Due to the Danube’s physical and economical geography the control of the river has played a critical role in European history and continues to be a focal point of the regions vitality. The heavy commercial, industrial and agricultural uses of the region have compromised the environmental health and economic potential of the Danube. For these reasons there is long history of agreements and treaties created to manage the navigable control and a more recent history of agreements to manage the health and economic growth of the Danube River network.

The headwaters are in the Black Forest of Germany. The river then crosses Austria (it waters Vienna), Slovakia (it waters Bratislava) and Hungary (it waters Budapest), then it forms the Serbo-Croatian border, crosses Serbia (it waters Belgrade) and forms the border between Romania (North) and Bulgaria (South). Then it crosses Romania, and finally forms a part of the border with Ukraine before entering the Black Sea through a large swampy delta. The basin countries also include Poland, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania and Macedonia. The Danube has thousands tributaries of which approximately 60 are navigable. The main tributaries are the Inn, Drava R, Tisza R, Sav R, Morav R, and the Prout R.

There are 26 major tributaries of the Danube River, all of which have their own sub-basins. The Tysa (somebodies called it Tisa) River Basin is the largest sub-basin in the DRB (157,186 km2). It is also the Danube’s longest tributary (966 km). By flow volume, it is the second largest after the Sava River. The Sava (or Save) River is the largest Danube tributary by discharge (average 1,564 m3/s) and the second largest by catchment area (95,419 km2). The Inn is the third largest by discharge and the seventh longest Danube tributary.

In the DRB, there are several freshwater lakes of varying sizes. The most prominent are the ‘Balaton’ in Hungary (605 km2) and the ‘Neusiedlersee’ (also called Fertö tó), which is shared by Austria and Hungary (315 km2). Furthermore, the Razim-Sinoe Lake System is composed of several interlinking large brackish lagoons that are separated from the sea by a sandbar.

Some countries such as Austria, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro and the Slovak Republic are almost completely situated within the DRB, whereas less than 5 percent of the territories of Albania, Italy, Macedonia, Poland and Switzerland lie in the basin. More than 26 percent of the overall basin population is Romanian. This is by far the largest population group in the DRB, followed by populations from Germany, Hungary, and Serbia and Montenegro.

The International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) was established in 1998 to promote and coordinate sustainable and equitable water management practices, including conservation, improvement and rational water use. The ICPDR, with thirteen cooperating states2 and the EU, pursues its mission by making recommendations for the improvement of water quality, developing mechanisms for flood and industrial accident control, agreeing on standards for emissions and by ensuring that these measures are reflected in the Contracting Parties’ national legislations and applied in their policies.

Ecosystems and transportation:

Floodplain forests, marshlands, deltas, floodplain corridors, lakeshores and other wetlands form the basis of the rich biodiversity in the DRB. In fact, the Danube River Basin extends into five of the eight biogeographical regions of Europe, each with its own particular characteristics. However, in those regions, industrialization, population growth and agriculture have had a negative impact on the size and biodiversity of wetlands.

Regulation works for navigation in the Upper Danube region started as early as the nineteenth century. Navigation is now possible in the Danube River itself and in some tributaries in the lower portions of the basin. In order to make the river navigable, the meanders were cut off in several places, the main channel was straightened and lateral dams were built to narrow the river’s width. Consequently, in some parts of the river, the length of the watercourse was shortened considerably. Additional artificial waterways were also built along the Danube River for transport purposes. These include the Main-Danube Canal in Germany, which provides a link to the Rhine and the North Sea, the Danube-Tysa-Danube Canal System in Serbia and Montenegro, and the Danube-Black Sea Canal in Romania. The Danube itself is now regulated along more than 80 percent of its length. The canals, in some areas, also serve as flood protection measures while providing recreational areas and tourist attractions.

The hydraulic works for navigation improvement have had a major impact on natural floodplains and their ecosystems. In many places along the river, the floodplains and meanders were cut off from the river system. As a result, 80 percent of the historical floodplain on the large rivers of the Danube River Basin has been lost during the last 150 years. Some of the remaining areas have either received protection status under different national or European legislation or international conventions (such as the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands) while other areas remain vulnerable (e.g. the Middle and Lower Drava-Mura wetlands in Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia). Large dikes and disconnected meanders also suppressed the exchange of surface and groundwater, which reduced the recharge of groundwater utilized for the drinking supply.

Given the ecological and hydrological importance of wetlands (preserving a diversity of species, recharging groundwater aquifers, flood buffering, etc.), the protected areas within the DRB are being compiled into an inventory. This inventory will help to provide crucial input for the preparation of the DRB Management Plan. The timetable for completion of the inventory is based on the European Commission’s progress in the establishment of ‘Natura 2000’, which will represent an authoritative network of protected sites in the European Community with the highest value for natural habitats and rare, endangered or vulnerable plant and animal species.

History:

In the early Middle Ages (3rd Century) the Danube formed the northern boundary of the Roman Empire. The Goths, Huns, Slavs, and other groups crossed the Danube in order to invade the Roman Empire. The Danube served as a route for the crusaders into Byzantium and then the Holy Land. The Ottomans used the route to advance into western and central Europe. By the 19th century, the Danube served as a link between the industrial centers of Germany (Austrian Empire) and the agricultural areas of the Balkan Peninsula (Ottoman Empire). After the Ottoman Empire collapsed Austria and other European powers signed the Treaty of Paris in 1856 to prevent Russia from acquiring the strategic Danube delta.

Both the commercial and military value of the Danube are still recognized today. Many treaties have been signed to try to keep one country from having too much control over the river. Today the Danube is still a major transport route, with over 3500 ships passing through its delta each year. Extensive navigation is made possible by various dredging, canals and channels often constructed with riparian cooperation for the benefit of all states.

The Environment:

Danube Basin’s environment

The Danube passes by numerous large cities, including four national capitals; Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, and Belgrade. The industries of these cities are largely responsible for most of the discharges of hazardous substances into the Danube basin. The agricultural practices (agriculture is a large portion of economy of Hungary and Bulgaria) contribute to the large nutrient load and high levels of nitrate in drinking water. Commercial transport is also a large source of oil pollution and lead contamination. The breakup of the USSR contributed to water quality deterioration, with the emerging economies finding few resources to solve environmental problems, and management issues being internationalized with re-drawn borders. In addition, thirty significant tributaries have been identified as "highly polluted."

The Danube Environment

Romania is the lower riparian and is consequently largely affected by the pollution of the river. Romanians set up the first environmental protection and rehabilitation program for the Danube. The program plans to reconstruct the ecological system in order to restore the fishing potential of the river. It will also improve the overall quality of the water and sewage networks.

The Danube Delta:

The delta was first declared a nature reserve in 1938 by the Council of Ministers. The reserve was continually expanded to reach the current size of 547,000 ha in 1991 when it was added to the World Heritage List and recognized as a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1992. There are 12 habit types, 300 bird species and 45 fresh water fish species. Currently the delta is managed by the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve Authority which reports to Romanian Ministry of Environment.

The delta is sinking due the increasing number of lakes and waterways. This sinking is causing 91% of the delta area to flood each year causing serious erosion of the Romanian coastline. The ecosystem, although seriously degraded, is considered seriously intact.

The embankment and canalization have increased the rate of desiccation of the lakes in the delta (Busila, 1990) as well as resulting in the drying up of the depressions between the dunes in Letea Forest, where the water table has dropped by 50 to 60cm below summer levels. Saplings have died and older trees stunted, soil erosion has increased and trees have been attacked by parasites (Kiss, 1990). Water quality in the Delta is very much determined by the water flowing down the Danube. A network of wet grasslands and the largest reed bed in the world along the lower Danube previously filtered the pollutants but the development has destroyed much of this network.

Heavy erosion of the river banks caused by the construction of the Iron Gates hydroelectric facility on the Romanian-Yugoslavian border, has resulted in "the coastline regressing between 20 and 30m a year, and in some cases even 70m a year" (Pons and Pons-Ghitulescu, 1990).

The Danube Drainage Basin has an important influence on the health of the Delta and the Black Sea with a high percentage of pollution originating outside of Romania.

Culture, Tourism and River Cruise:

Culture and tourism present great opportunities for development along the Danube. There is an identity shared by Danube countries and regions. The richness of the river offers great potential for attracting visitors. There are already many interesting cruises on parts of the Danube and I know that key tourism operators are considering developing a specific Danube "label". This will increase the visibility and attractiveness of the region. These initiatives should be encouraged and the necessary investments to improve facilities should be made.

Along the long course of the Danube, we find regions with widely differing development levels. Sustainable development must remain a central concept. But we should also be aware that there will be very significant differences in the investment and cooperation priorities that have and will be further identified and implemented for the Danube regions.

The Danube Pollution:

Pollution is a major problem in the Danube River Basin. Nutrient, organic and hazardous pollution are all factors that could result in the Danube failing to meet the EU law. Much has already been done nationally and internationally to analyze and reduce pollution, from Cousteau’s expedition in 1991 to 1992 to building new wastewater treatment plants.

The pollution of the Danube, Nitrate leaching

Most countries appear to be at high risk of groundwater pollution from fertilizers, chemicals, untreated sewage and leaching from contaminated soils. 48 million people depend on groundwater sources for drinking water.

Pollution really starts affecting the Danube’s water quality after Budapest. The main sources are urban settlements, industry and agriculture, from both point and non-point sources.

Nutrient pollution, mainly from nitrogen and phosphorus, is a serious concern, (*) Nitrogen use doubled from the 1950s to the mid-1980s followed by a substantial reduction in the late 1980s. But today, levels are still almost twice those of the 1950s. (**) The main source of phosphorus is wastewater from urban settlements. Overall phosphorus levels are 20% higher than in the 1950s.

"Eutrophication" through nutrient pollution has contributed to a severe ecological imbalance in the Black Sea. Many species have been heavily impacted, with fish stocks showing alarming declines. Recently, however, there have been reports of recovery in the biological diversity of the northwest part of the Black Sea.

Overall, pollution has declined in the Basin mainly because most economies of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries took major hits following political transformation in the late 1980s that affected both industry and agriculture While the Black Sea shows signs of recovery, expected economic improvements in CEE countries could see pollution increase again.

Hundreds of hazardous substances are released into the Danube basin and many pose serious threats to environment and health. Of 33 “priority substances” identified by the EU as hazardous and requiring phase-out within 20 years, most are used in the Danube basin. The biggest threat is from DDT, a pesticide banned in Europe - in Danube samples taken, 71% exceeded permissible levels.

References and Sources:

Michael J. Quin, "Steam Voyage Down The Danube", London 1835
http://www.icpdr.org/

The Amazon River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:42:00 +0000

Geography and climate:

The Amazon River is one of the largest river in the world. The Amazon is more than 4000 m long. It is largest River in Brazil.

The countries of the River basin: (Bolivia, Venezuela, Brasil, Ecuador, Peru, Guyana, Suriname and Colombia).

The Amazon River

Origins of the river:

This small rivers Morona, Pastaza, Urituyacu, Nanay, Nucuray, Chambira, Tigre, Ucayali, Huallaga, and Napo assemble together from Ecuador and Peru to flow into the Amazon River.

Mouth of the river:

Mouth of the River, satellite map

The Amazon have a wider mouth, because the River's estuary is about 330 km including the outlet of the Atlantic Ocean. There is an island lying in the mouth of the Amazon called Marajó.

Basin of the Amazon River:

The Amazon Basin is suggested to contain at least, 1294 kind of birds, 40,000 plant kinds, 427 kind of mammals, 427 kind of amphibians, 378 species of reptiles, 3000 species of fish and perhaps more than 1000000 species of insect in the Amazon tropical forest. These prophecy are probably conservative, because a large number of ecosystems are not discovered yet. It is believed that at least 50 percent of species of the region have not as yet been discovered by science.

Flooding of the river:

The average of the water in the amazon river start rise in November ana increases day by day until June and falls till the eand of October. In the rainy season the average depth of the water is 40 meters, while the average width of the water is about 40 kilometers.

The Amazon River flooding covering more than 300000 kilometers square. It is represent one of the largest inundation areas in the world. The area of inundated floodplain forests seasonally is estimated to cover more than 97000 kilometers square and with that it is play an important role in the atmospheric budgets of carbon dioxide gas, trace gases, nutrients, water and energy on multiple scales. There are a Seasonal fluctuations in water levels of the River which subject trees to continuous flooding periods of over to 210 days per year with an average of about ten m in flood amplitude. The trees that inhabit these areas by causing drastic changes in soil chemistry and Oxygen availability to the roots of plant, because of the 10000 times slower transfer of dissolved oxygen in the water filled pore space of the soil assembly.

The Amazon forests:

Throughout the last century till nowaday, the Amazon forest has accross through variety series of deforestation, which has accelerated considerably in the second half of the last century. Large hectares of forest are still being cleared from their wood or to use it for agriculture and animal husbandry. According to Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) forestation, the Amazon forest was deforested at a rate of (4.3 million) hectares per year through 5 years (between 2000 and 2005) according to FAO report, 2005. In the other way, the destruction of the forest accounted for some 22 percent of global emissions of CO2 and that were responsible for a large rate of the increase in the greenhouse effect. The annual CO2 emissions resulting from deforestation in the Amazon River basin are suggested between one hundred and half and 2 hundred million tonnes.

Cut the trees

The Rain Forest of the Amazon River has 2 seasons: the dry season and the rainy season. In the rainy season, the river can be rise to 25 miles in wide. While in the dry season, the Amazon River can be up to seven miles in wide, and During the rainy season, the river bank floods and become wider.

Wildlife:

Many kinds of animals found here, including spangled cotinga, russetbacked oropendola. hoatzin and maybe the rare harpy eagle. In the other way there are about 15 species of primates in the wild, including squirrel, monk saki and red howler monkeys found in the amazon forest. Amazon wildlife also including black caimans, capybaras, three-toed sloths and giant blue morpho butterflies. And that wildlife are led by skilled local naturalist guides and workers.

Amazon River (water animals):

The piranha: The piranha is a small kind of fish which have large teeth. Piranhas can be grey, blue, or black. Piranhas can be anywhere from six inches up to eighteenth inches. The piranhas live in warm and fresh water. The piranha is omnivore, that means they eat animals and plants. The piranha also eat fruits and berries that fall from the trees. Piranhas hunt in large drifts called packs or shoals.

The Dwarf Caiman: It is one of a member of the Crocodile family. The Dwarf Caiman live in fresh water. It has a disguise methods so you cannot see the caiman when it is in the water face. Their eyes are appear above the water but the rest of the body is under water.

The Anaconda: The Anaconda is a kind of snakes but it is largest snakes in the world, because that snake can grow up to thirty feet. The Anaconda have many colors between dark, brown and green. Their color help it to blend into the area where it lives. This snake lives in the edge of the water, and it is spend some time in the water. Anacondas are constrictors and the anaconda's eyes are on the top of the head. This snake can breathe and see underwater.

The Amazon River dolphin: Many river animals in the Amazon River exactly the Amazon's dolphins which swimming near the ship accross the river. The Amazon River dolphin have about six and half feet long. They come in all colors of pink from rosy colored pink to a dull gray pink or to a bright pink like the color of the flamingo.

Travel accross the amazon:

The Amazon basin have variety types for the travellers. From the forests to rivers and lakes beside the variety of animal wildlife there, including dolphins, birds, monkeys, snakes and and more. There are skilled guides in natural history. Amazon River's Voyage one of the greates trip for the travellers to discover the wildlife in the region.

Columbia River

noreply@blogger.com (secblog) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:44:00 +0000

The Columbia River is the second largest river in USA. It is the first river to flow toward the eastern North Pacific. In the same time The Columbia River consider the fourth largest river on the continent and it generates the power by high level than any other river in the North America. The Columbia River Basin is located in Canada by about 259500 square miles and that act about fifteen percent. Most of the flood waters flow by The Dalles Dam in the area between Washington and Oregon. Look to this map.

The Columbia River between Oregon and Washington

The Columbia River named by traveling the first ship from the western world called Columbia through the river. It empty the water in Pacific Ocean but before that the river form the border between Oregon and Washington. The long of Columbia River is about 2000 km, and the river drainage basin about 667962 square km. It generate the largest electric power from all the rivers in the North America by 14 hydroelectric dams in USA and Canada.

There are many dams up the river current like Dalles dam, Wanapum dam, Pelton dam, Round Butte dam, Mayfield dam, Condit dam, Swift dam, etc..

Dalles Dam by google earth

Wanapum dam by google earth

The river has many tributaries and many kinds of fish which move in migration between the unclean tributaries water and the Pacific Ocean water. The known kind of that fish is the salmon.

There are Several tributaries of the Columbia River. The main tributaries is 1-The Snake River which located in Oregon, Idaho, Washington and Wyoming. 2- Willamette River in Oregon. 3-Pend Oreille River in British Columbia, Idaho and Washington. 4-Yakima River in Washington. 5-Kootenay River in Idaho, British Columbia and Montana. And all of these main tributaries have many sub-tributaries.

The river has some unsafe areas exactly when using of buoy or practice the sport river. This danger areas like the pilings of the Sand Islands.

The treaty of Columbia River is a treaty between USA and Canada. The origin of this treaty back to 1940 since the second world war. The two countries seek together a joint solution to the flooding of Columbia River. Also the conditions after the second world war demand for running beyond the resources of energy. After the negotiations The two countries agreement on a treaty between them which was the Columbia River Treaty.

Columbia River Images:

Columbia River

Columbia River flood