History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce, Volume 4 (of 4)

by W. S. Lindsay

Rivers.

But if the lakes of North America are vast in extent, the navigable rivers are even more gigantic, and afford still wider fields of remunerative employment for steamers.[149] Indeed, until steam-ships were launched on their surface, many of these rivers were altogether unnavigable, and some of them unexplored. Those of my readers who have not visited America, can form only a very imperfect idea of her mighty streams. Some of them, as may be seen by reference to a map of the United States, have their source in the northern parts of the Rocky Mountains, and discharge themselves by the Gulf of St. Lawrence into the Atlantic, while others rising in the west of these mountain ranges flow into the Pacific. Those which have their sources to the east of the Alleghany Mountains find their way by various routes, and through luxuriant valleys, some of them of enormous extent, to numerous outlets on the shores of the Atlantic and on the north-eastern portion of the Gulf of Mexico, while the rivers comprehended under the head of the Mississippi and its tributaries, which spring from that great valley between the Alleghany and the Rocky Mountains, likewise pour their huge volumes of water into the Mexican Gulf, with New Orleans as the chief entrepôt of their now gigantic commerce. The former rivers, upwards of one hundred in number, afford an aggregate amount of more than 3000 miles of ship and boat navigation. But the latter, embracing the parent Mississippi, the Missouri, the Ohio, Arkansas, Red River, and various other tributaries pouring their waters into the giant stream, constitute an aggregate length of no less than 44,000 miles![150] Large steamers now ascend to Pittsburg, a distance of 2000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. The Missouri, which joins the Mississippi 18 miles above the city of St. Louis and about 1200 miles from the gulf, has an uninterrupted navigation of 2532 miles from its mouth; its tributaries being the Gasconade, navigable for 150 miles; the Osage for 500 miles; the Chariton for 300 miles; the Tansas for 200 miles; and the Yellowstone for 800 miles; while the Moine, which flows into the Mississippi 130 miles above the Missouri, is supposed, with its tributaries, to be navigable for a distance of 1500 miles.

Such are a few, but a few only, of the many navigable rivers which pour their waters into the Mississippi; there are many others whose names our space precludes the possibility of our even mentioning. To the north and the west, we have the St. Lawrence, a river second only to the Mississippi, with a course of upwards of 2000 miles, receiving the waters of about thirty others of considerable size; and, though navigable itself for large sea-going vessels only as far as Montreal, a distance of 880 miles from the Atlantic, it is extensively used in its upper portion under the name of the St. Mary’s River, where, among the islands with which it is studded and the numerous rapids with which it is impeded, it is navigated by vast rafts of timber and by fleets of strong flat-bottomed boats expressly built for the purpose, and well-known as the Canadian batteaux.

Then we have the River Hudson (on which the first vessel in America propelled by steam was employed), small in itself compared to those I have named, but important from its connection with New York, and the extent and value of its trade; and most interesting to the traveller, from its beautiful scenery. This river is navigable for ships of large burden up to the town from which it derives its name, about 120 miles above New York, and for vessels of smaller draught of water to Albany and Troy respectively 30 and 34 miles further. To the north we have the Penobscot with a course of 300 miles from the bay of that name in the State of Maine, navigable for large vessels to Bangor, a distance of 50 miles, and the Kennebach River with a course of 230 miles, navigable for 40 miles from the sea, as also the Merrimac of 200 miles in length, and the Connecticut, which, after a course of 450 miles through a highly cultivated and fertile country, discharges itself into Long Island Sound.

To the south there is the important River Delaware, of 310 miles in length, navigable for vessels of the largest class to Philadelphia, a distance of 40 miles, and the Susquehanna flowing into the Chesapeake, which, though the largest river in the important and productive State of Pennsylvania, is more celebrated for the beauty of its scenery than for the facilities it affords for navigation. There is also the Patapsco, navigable to Baltimore for vessels drawing 18 to 20 feet of water; the Patuscent, navigable for 60 miles from its mouth; and the Potomac, navigated by vessels of the largest class to Washington, a distance of 103 miles from Chesapeake Bay; as also the Rappahannoc, navigable for 110 miles to the town of Fredericksburg, besides the James River and various others of greater or less importance extending along the line of coast from Chesapeake Bay to the western shores of the Gulf of Mexico.

Seaboard.

Bays and roadsteads.

But, beyond the vast facilities these immense lakes and rivers afford to a maritime commerce capable of development to an extent far beyond the conception of the most sanguine enthusiast, there is the extensive seaboard of that great continent, studded with harbours, and containing some of the most magnificent bays and the largest and safest roadsteads to be found in any part of the world. Take, for instance, the line of coast extending northwards from Chesapeake Bay to the Gulf of St. Lawrence: that bay, itself, has safe anchorage for an untold number of vessels; and, to the northward, there are numerous other bays and sheltered sounds, affording natural facilities for the formation of harbours more commodious than any which works of art alone, however costly, could possibly supply. From among these the Americans have been able to select many admirable sites for their trade emporiums,—in themselves also natural harbours of refuge of the finest description, completely sheltered from the surge of the ocean, and, therefore, not requiring for their protection the expensive breakwaters of Plymouth, Portland, or Cherbourg; where, along the margin of projecting tongues of land or within out-lying islands, vessels of the largest description can anchor in safety, or be moored alongside jetties erected at a trifling expense, where, too, they can discharge their cargoes into warehouses with almost as much ease as they could do in the London or Liverpool docks. These natural advantages, amply illustrated as they are in the case of New York, a city evidently destined to rival, if not to surpass, any city of either ancient or modern times, London not excepted, struck the writer with surprise and wonder. Situated on the southern portion of the island of Manhattan, New York is washed on the east by the sound separating it from Long Island,[151] and on the west by the estuary of the River Hudson, while the bay itself, which is nine miles in length and five miles in breadth, has a communication with the Atlantic through a strait two miles in width, between Staten Island and Long Island, completely sheltered from the ocean and forming a magnificent deep-water basin, with abundant quays and jetties on its eastern, western, and southern margins: here vessels of any size can deliver their cargoes into the heart of the city at all times and in perfect safety.

Proceeding further north we reach Boston Bay, more celebrated than any other place in the history of the War of Independence, a thoroughly sheltered inlet of about 75 square miles in extent, inclosed by two necks of land so nearly approaching each other as to leave only a narrow entrance communicating directly with the Atlantic, with deep water close in shore where numerous wharves are erected as in the case of New York. Further north, we reach Narraganset Bay, and, within it, the town of Newport and its finely sheltered roadstead forming one of the most superb natural harbours in America; also Penobscot Bay into which the river of that name flows, and Passamaquoddy with its excellent roadstead receiving the waters of the River St. Croix, the boundary between the United States and the Dominion of Canada.

With such magnificent bays, harbours, roadsteads, lakes, and rivers all ready formed by the hand of Nature to receive an almost unlimited extent of shipping, and, at the same time, peculiarly adapted for the employment of steamers, it is not a matter for surprise that the Americans should have directed their genius and energy to this new branch of industry and their skill to the rapid development of the power of steam, affording them as it did extraordinary means of opening out hitherto unknown branches of commerce and new sources of almost unbounded wealth. More conversant at this period than any other nation with the most approved style of shipbuilding, and possessing an abundant supply of materials at a comparatively low price, they were able, when steam-vessels were first introduced, to construct them at a lower cost than any other people; and if they had not the same facilities for obtaining steam-engines, these could easily be obtained from England.