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The march up from Schenectady had been a most wearisome one for the men, owing to the miserable condition of the road, never over-smooth and now rendered doubly bad and difficult by the spring freshets and the oozing frost.
This was, indeed, throwing the gauntlet down to the old expounders of erratic phenomena upon the principle of floods, freshets, and floating ice. Many well-known geologists were present at the meeting, among them Leopold von Buch, who could hardly contain his indignation, mingled with contempt, for what seemed to him the view of a youthful and inexperienced observer.
Edgewood went to bed as usual that night, for the bridge at that point was set too high to be carried away by freshets, but at other villages whose bridges were in less secure position there was little sleep and much anxiety. At midnight a cry was heard from the men watching at Milliken's Mills.
"Ice melting up above," said Mr. Parkney, getting out his tools while Bob tied the horse to a tree. "See the chunks of ice floating past?" As the boys watched they saw pieces of dirty-looking ice go swirling past in the rushing water. "Is it a freshet?" asked Sunny Boy, remembering what his daddy had told him about freshets. "Not exactly," answered Mr. Parkney.
Its cubic capacity was such, however, that when this reservoir was filled by spring freshets it contained water enough to run the full season round if sparingly used; and it was on this alone that the mill depended for its power, and the mine for its lights and train service, from hoist to breakers.
The more elevated parts were overgrown with tall reeds that in the distance looked like fields of waving corn, and immense flocks of wild-fowl haunted them. Into this dismal swamp the rivers brought down their freshets, the waters mingling and winding by devious channels before they reached the sea.
Winter Amusements A Winnipeg Ball Forty Degrees below Zero New Year's Day Saskatchewan Taylor Indian Compliments A Dog train Lost in the Snow Amateur Theatricals Sir Walter Raleigh's Hat A Race with the Freshets The Ice moves The First Steamer of the Season Good-bye to Winnipeg.
These are probably all swept away by the ice in the spring freshets. The hills somewhat resemble those on the Upper Mississippi, except that here there are none of those cliffs of yellow limestone which are remarkable on the great river of the West. About eight miles farther on we stopped for dinner near a cold brook, from which I took half a dozen trout.
Western men were seldom members of organized churches, though the fear of the Deity, natural to those who witnessed the great "freshets" and the storms and cyclones which swept over the plains, carrying entire villages with them or cutting wide swaths through the primeval forests, was a powerful influence upon everyday conduct.
At last the mountain of ice passed by, followed by the muddy freshets that carried down the trunks of fallen trees, logs and bodies, bodies, bodies. The fisherman and his son put me and my luggage into their dugout made from an aspen tree and poled upstream along the bank. Poling in a swift current is very hard work.
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