Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 6, December 1852

In treating of the magnitude of rivers, some writers refer to the elevation of the range of mountains from which they descend; and it is obviously true, that the greater the height of the mountains, the more extensive are their snows and glaciers, and the larger the supply of water furnished by springs and torrents. But the magnitude of a stream is more especially regulated by the extent of country which forms the declivities of its basin, though there is no invariable proportion here, for a small basin in a humid region will yield a greater quantity of water than one much more considerable in a different situation. High mountains, a humid climate, and a wide superficial drainage, are the three physical circumstances which lead to the accumulation of vast bodies of water, the magnitude of which will be proportionate to the degree in which these causes are in combined operation. Upon the surface of the New World, we have these causes acting with greater intensity than upon that of the Old, which explains the superior character of the streams of the western continent. The following exhibits the extent of the hydrographical regions of the principal rivers of the globe, with the proportionate quantity of their waters:

Malte Brun estimates that, representing all the waters discharged by the European rivers by unity, the Black Sea receives 0·273; the Caspian, 0·165; the Mediterranean, Sea of Marmora, and Archipelago, 0·144; the Atlantic Ocean, 0·131; the Baltic, 0·129; the North Sea, 0·110; the Arctic Frozen Ocean, 0·048. The annexed table has a character of universal interest, and naturally finds a place here.

The first place among the rivers of the globe is due to the Amazon, if not for the length of its course, yet for the volume of its waters. It traverses the equatorial regions of South America, chiefly in a direction from west to east, and has its embouchure nearly under the equator. Its mouth was discovered in the year 1500 by Pinzon, one of the captains who sailed with Columbus on his first voyage; and thirty nine years afterward, the stream was traced downward from Peru by Francisco Orellana, whose name was given to the river by his countrymen, to preserve the memory of his bold enterprise. But the Spaniard’s report of having met with armed women on its banks, deprived him of the honor, for it originated the common title of the river of the Amazon. Its principal affluents rival the largest rivers of the Eastern continent, as appears from the following statement of their supposed lengths —

The width of the Amazon averages from one to two miles in the upper parts of its course, but toward its termination its opposite banks are seen with difficulty, and it widens to between twenty and thirty miles, which is about its breadth upon joining the Atlantic. For two thousand miles in a direct line from the ocean, the river is navigable by vessels of any burden; for, at the confluence of the Tunguragua and Ucayali, where the Amazon – properly so called – commences, no bottom was found in March, 1836, with a line of 35 fathoms, or 210 feet. The tide rushes up its channel with immense violence at the period of the full moon, in two, three and sometimes four successive waves, each presenting a perpendicular front of from ten to fifteen feet. When the tide ebbs in the rainy season, the liberated waters of the river rush out of their channel with tremendous force, and create a current in the ocean, which is perceptible five hundred miles from its mouth. It is difficult to sound the river, owing to the rapidity of its current, which runs commonly at the rate of from three to four miles an hour – a momentum not arising from the inclination of its bed, the fall of which is very gradual, but from the immense quantity of water which descends in it. The climate of its basin is, perhaps, the most humid to which any country is subject. The quantity of rain which annually descends upon this region, has not been ascertained with precision; but taking that at the town of Maranhão as a sample, which is not less than two hundred inches, the amount of rain poured upon the district of the Amazon every year must be prodigious. The heat also is excessive through the whole year, the thermometer in the shade frequently rising to 106° when the sun is near the line, a degree of heat not much inferior to that experienced in the Sahara; and as moisture and heat are the most efficient agents in promoting vegetation, hence the luxuriance and energy of vegetable life in the fertile soil on the banks of the river, where the noblest woodland scenery in the world is to be found. Notwithstanding the rapid current of the Amazon, its navigation is easy to vessels both descending and ascending its course, the ascent being facilitated by the far-penetrating tide of the Atlantic, assisted by the wind, which is always blowing from the east, a direction contrary to that of the stream. But the effect of the presence and absence of civilization is nowhere more strikingly exhibited than on the waters of the South American river, and those of its rivals, the Mississippi, and the Yang-tse-Kiang of the Chinese empire. The vessels that annually appear upon the surface of the Amazon are, probably, not more than those which monthly navigate the Mississippi, or daily pass along the course of the Yang-tse-Kiang.

At the head of rivers, classed according to their length, the Mississippi is to be placed, taking the Missouri branch, which ought to be the name of the united stream, not only on account of its longer course, but because it brings down a greater body of water, and imparts its turbid character to its rival. Geographers have, however, given the former name to the joint rivers, the “Father of Waters,” according to its Indian signification, which may be aptly applied to the great central valley of North America, furnishing the following streams, which unite in the channel of the Lower Mississippi, and pour down through it into the Gulf of Mexico —

The most beautiful tributary of the Mississippi is the Ohio, the Belle rivière of the early French settlers, the only large river it receives from the east. No stream rolls for the same distance so uniformly and peacefully; its banks are adorned with the largest sycamores, its waters clear, and studded with islands covered with the finest trees. All the other great tributaries flow from the west: its confluence with the Missouri, which enters it like a conqueror, and carries its white waves to the opposite shore, presenting one of the most extraordinary views in the world. The country around these vast watercourses is of the most varied description, alternately exhibiting wild rice-lakes and swamps, lime-stone bluffs and craggy hills, deep pine forests and beautiful prairies, the prairies showing an almost perfect level, in summer covered with a luxuriant growth of grass and flowers, without a tree or a bush, the only tenants of which are elks and buffaloes, bears and deer, and the savages that pursue them. The bluffs of the Mississippi are for the most part perpendicular masses of limestone, often shooting up into towers and pinnacles, presenting at a distance the aspect of the battlements and turrets of an ancient city. In the season of inundation, below the mouth of the Ohio, the river presents a very striking spectacle. It sweeps along in curves or sections of circles, from six to twelve miles in extent, measured from point to point, and not far from the medial width of a mile. On a calm spring morning, and under a bright sun, this sheet of water shines like a mass of burnished silver, its edges being distinctly marked by a magnificent outline of cotton-wood trees, at this time of the year of the brightest verdure, among which those brilliant birds of the country, the black and red bird, and the blue jay, flit to and fro, or wheel their flight over them, forming a scene which has all of grandeur or beauty that nature can furnish, to soothe or enrapture the beholder. The curvilinear course of the Mississippi is one of its most striking peculiarities. It meanders in uniform bends, which, in many instances, are described with a precision equal to that obtained by the point of a compass. The river sweeps round the half of a circle, and is then precipitated in a diagonal direction across its own channel, to another curve of the same regularity upon the opposite shore. Instead of calculating distances by miles or leagues, the boatmen and Indians estimate their progress by the number of bends which they have passed. This conformation, which distinguishes most of the streams of the Mississippi valley, must have transpired under the operation of some law; but hitherto no solution of the problem has been given which is quite satisfactory. Geological appearances indicate that this stream, like the Orinoco, had in former ages a much broader volume, though a shorter course; that, in fact, it once found its estuary not far below the present mouth of the Ohio; the alluvial country now stretching from thence to the south, near a thousand miles, being then an arm of the sea. “No thinking mind,” says Flint, “can contemplate this mighty and resistless wave, sweeping its proud course from point to point, curving round its bends through the dark forests, without a feeling of sublimity. The hundred shores, laved by its waters; the long course of its tributaries, some of which are already the abodes of cultivation, and others pursuing an immense course without a solitary dwelling of civilized man on their banks; the numerous tribes of savages that now roam on its borders; the affecting and imperishable traces of generations that are gone, leaving no other memorial of their existence, or materials for their history than their tombs, that rise at frequent intervals along its banks; the dim, but glorious anticipations of the future – these are subjects of contemplation that cannot but associate themselves with a view of this river.”

Though far inferior to these streams of the western world in point of length and volume, the Nile of the ancient continent may be placed at the head of remarkable rivers. One of its chief peculiarities is the solitary grandeur of its flow; for not a single affluent enters it from the junction of the Tacazze to the sea, a distance of 1500 miles – a circumstance without a parallel in the physical condition of rivers. Another of its striking features is its long course through a desert, dry, barren, and hideous, depositing by its annual inundation the richest soil on those portions of it which lie contiguous to its banks; and hence has originated the apt comparison of its career to the path of a good man amidst an evil generation. Egypt would be completely sterile were it not for the periodical overflow of its only stream, which both covers a large part of its surface with a layer of alluvion, and imparts to it the requisite moisture.

“Rich king of floods! o’erflows the swelling Nile —
– glad to quit
The joyless desert, down the Nubian rocks
From thund’ring steep to steep he pours his urn,
And Egypt joys beneath the spreading wave.”

It requires the river to attain a medium rise in order to benefit the country: too little, involving scarcity and famine; too much, compromising the safety of the people and their dwellings. Wilkinson calls a rise of 19 cubits, tolerable; 20, good; 21, sufficient; while a rise of 22 cubits is abundant enough to fill every canal, and a rise of 24 cubits would overwhelm and ruin the villages. A cubit is rather more than 21 inches; so that, in order fully to meet the wants of the country, a perpendicular rise of 38 feet is necessary. The Nile is also distinguished among rivers for the pleasant taste and salubrity of its waters when not in flood; properties highly extolled by the ancients, and acknowledged to belong to it by modern travelers. It is a common saying with the Egyptians, that if Mahomet had tasted of its stream, he would have sought a terrestrial immortality in order to enjoy it forever. The physical circumstances of the river easily account for the possession of this attribute. The air above is pure and serene. But little rain falls upon the country through which the greater part of its course is prosecuted, and no snow or hail. Hence there is little drainage into it from the surrounding land, and its waters are kept free from any noxious taint derived from earths and minerals, except from those in its immediate channel. The same property of being remarkably pure and salutary is ascribed by Herodotus to one of the Susianic rivers, of which alone, according to tradition, none but the kings of Persia drank.

“There Susa, by Choaspes’ amber stream,
The drink of none but kings.”

The Susianic streams, along with the Nile, may not improperly be styled the oldest rivers of the globe, because of their place in its most ancient traditions and histories; and however subordinate to the gigantic currents of the western hemisphere, those of the eastern, in general, present higher points of interest, in their long-known identification with the destinies of mankind. If not the actual birthplace of man, the great plains on the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates were the abode of the founders of the diluvian race. There, the two greatest cities of the ancient world – Nineveh and Babylon – rose into magnificence. There, a supernatural finger traced the doom of the latter upon the palace wall of its trembling monarch, while an exiled Jew, in the majesty of inspiration, gave him the interpretation of the mystic writing. There, too, the splendid empire of the Medes and Persians fell a prey to the Macedonian on the field of Arbela, while, in later ages, the same neighborhood witnessed the catastrophe of Cunaxa, and the bold bearing of the indomitable ten thousand – the defeat and death of Crassus – the retreat of Mark Antony – the fall of the apostate Julian – and the short-lived glory of Bagdad. How different the associations connected with the Arkansas and the Osage to those of the Euphrates and Tigris!

WERE I BUT WITH THEE

—

BY CAROLINE F. ORNE

—

Hours of lonely musing
Sometimes thou must have,
When, of toil a-weary,
Rest thy soul doth crave.
Then, if I were near thee,
Care would be forgot,
And obtrusive sorrows
Be as they were not.
Thoughts and themes of beauty,
Rising wild and free,
Would our converse gladden
Were I but with thee!
Thou wouldst bear my spirit
To thy shadow-land,
Where bright shapes of beauty
Spring, a glorious band.
Their harmonious motions,
As the wild waves free,
Would enchain our spirits
Were I but with thee!
I would bear thee onward
To my realms of life,
Where with joy transcendent
All the scenes are rife,
In that glorious dream-land,
On that magic sea,
It were nearer heaven
Were I but with thee!

SONNET. – IRON

—

BY WM. ALEXANDER

—

Thy worth, O Iron! can be never told!
Thou art the richest treasure of the mine!
By thee great nations polished are and shine,
And using thee contemn, may glittering gold —
Hail! ever useful one! Art were now dead
If wanting thee. Thou in our life-blood flowest;
Where run streams, fountains, there thou likewise goest;
War claims thee, for thy presence makes him red;
The mariner his needle forms of thee,
To guide him pilot-like across the main;
From thee old oaks solidity, too, gain;
In cinders, clay thou art found continually —
Earth’s mineral strata yield to thee the palm;
Thou canst make war – and mak’st the nations calm.

NINEVEH, AND ASSYRIAN ART

[WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.]

Among the recent developments of the remains of ancient art, by far the most important and interesting are those of Mr. Layard at the site of Nineveh, a full account of which is given in the volumes recently published by George P. Putnam, of New York, entitled “Nineveh and its Remains; with an account of a visit to the Chaldean Christians of Kurdiston, and the Yezidis, or Devil-Worshipers; and an inquiry into the Manners and Arts of the Ancient Assyrians.”

Mr. Layard’s work contains an account of the labors carried on by him at Nimroud, from November 1845 until April 1847; and also of the less extensive excavations which he caused to be made at Kalah Sherghat and Kouyunjik. The narrative has all the liveliness and glow of a romance; the incidents are highly characteristic of oriental life; and many of them are of tragic and thrilling interest. His account of the difficulties which he had to overcome with the Arabs, Turks and Chaldeans, in securing their aid toward the accomplishment of his grand design, is very curious, and evinces a wonderful amount of coolness, ability and tact. Not less remarkable are the energy and perseverence which he exerted in conducting his noble enterprise to a successful termination.

Toward the close of his book, Mr. Layard gives a summary of the result of his investigations and of their bearing on the history of the Assyrians. They add an immense amount of information, to that which was already in possession of the learned world, respecting the progress of art and civilization among this ancient people and dissipate many errors. The discovery of the arch, of glass, and of the pulley, among the mines, evince the high antiquity of these inventions, which have been supposed to be of comparatively modern origin; and the very remarkable fact that the most ancient among the Assyrian works of art are by far the best executed, lead to the conviction that there is an unwritten ancient history of far greater extent and interest than that which has been preserved. All that portion of history which relates to the origin and rise of Assyrian art of course remains unknown. This is probably the case, too, with reference to Babylon and the other ancient empires of Asia.

We proceed to give some extracts from Mr. Layard’s work, which, by the courtesy of the publisher, we are permitted to illustrate with engravings. We commence where he records some of his earliest operations at the great mound of Nimroud:

“No sculptures had hitherto been discovered in a perfect state of preservation, and only one or two could bear removal. I determined, therefore, to abandon this corner, and to resume excavations near the chamber first opened, where the slabs had in no way been injured. The workmen were directed to dig behind the small lions, which appeared to form an entrance, and to be connected with other walls. After removing much earth, a few unsculptured slabs were discovered, fallen from their places, and broken in many pieces. The sides of the room of which they had originally formed a part could not be traced.