Book: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861




"The moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must" lead "me."

And gently as the fawn follows the forest-keeper does my heart follow
his, to the green pastures and still waters where he loves to lead. I
did not think whether he had a name.

"Are you considering what to put into the secret drawer, Del?"

"Yes,--rather."

Again Laura and I sat and rocked,--this time silently, for my head was
full, and I was holding a stopper on it to keep it from running over;
while Laura was really puzzled about the way to make a dog's eyes with
Berlin wool. As I rocked, from association probably, I thought again of
Eve,--who never seems at all like a grandmother to me, nor even like
"the mother of all living," but like a sweet, capricious, tender,
naughty girl. Like Eve, I had only to stretch forth my hand (with the
fifty-dollar note in it) and grasp "as much beauty as could live" within
that space. Yet, as fifty dollars would buy not only this, but that,
and also the other, it presently became the representative of tens
of fifties, hundreds of fifties, thousands of fifties, and so
on,--different fifties all, but all assuming shapes of beauty and value;
finally, alternately clustering and separating, gathering as if in all
sorts of beautiful heads,--angel heads, winged children,--then shooting
off in a thousand different directions, leaving behind landscapes of
exquisite sunsets, of Norwegian scenery, of processions of pines, of
moonlight seen through arched bridges, of Palmyrene deserts, of
pilgrims in the morning praying. Then came hurdy-gurdy boys and little
flower-girls again, mingling with the landscapes, and thrusting their
curly heads forward, as if to bid me not forget them. Then they all ran
away and left me standing in a long, endless hall with endless columns,
and white figures all about,--in the niches, on the floor, on the
walls,--each Olympian in beauty, in grandeur, in power to lift the
entranced soul to the high region where itself was created, and to which
it always pointed. The white figures melted and warmed into masses and
alcoves, and innumerable volumes looked affectionately at me. They knew
me of old, and had told me their delightful secrets. "They had slept
in my bosom, and whispered kind things to me in the dark night." Some
pressed forward, declaring that here was the new wine of thought,
sparkling and foaming as it had never done before, from the depths of
human sympathy; and others murmured, "The old is better," and smiled at
the surface-thoughts in blue and gold. Volumes and authors grew angry
and vituperative. There was so much to be said on all sides, that I was
deafened, and, with a shake of my head, shook everything into chaos, as
I had done a hundred times before.

"What are you thinking of, Del?" said Laura, pointing the dog's eye with
scarlet wool, to make him look fierce. "You have been looking straight
at me for half a minute."

"Half a minute! have I?"

That wasn't long, however, considering what I had seen in the time.

"At Cotton's, yesterday, I saw, Laura, a beautiful engraving of Arria
and Paetus. She is drawing the dagger from her side, and saying, so
calmly, so heroically,--'My Paetus! it is not hard to die!'"

I had inquired the price of this engraving, and the man said it was
fifty dollars without the frame.

"Those pictures are so painful to look at! don't you think so, Del? And
the better they are, the worse they are! Don't you remember that day we
passed with Sarah, how we wondered she could have her walls covered with
such pictures?"

"Merrill brought them home from Italy, or she wouldn't, perhaps. But I
do remember,--they ware very disagreeable. That flaying of Marsyas! and
Christ crowned with thorns! and that sad Ecce Homo!"

"Yes,--and the Laocooen on that centre bracket! enough to make you scream
to look at it! I desire never to have such bloody reminders about me;
and for a parlor or sitting-room I would infinitely prefer a dead wall
to such a picture, if it were by the oldest of the old masters. Who
wants Ugolino in the house, if it is ever so well painted? Supping on
horrors indeed!"

We rocked again,--and Laura talked about plants and shirts and such
healthy subjects. But, of course, my mind was in such a condition,
nothing but fifty-dollar subjects would stay in it; and, most of all, I
must not let Laura guess what I was thinking of.

"Do you like enamelled watches, Laura,--those pretty little ones made in
Geneva, I mean, worth from forty to sixty dollars?"

"How do you mean? Do I like the small timepieces? or is it the picture
on the back?" said Laura.

"Oh, either. I was thinking of a beauty I saw at Crosby's yesterday,
with the Madonna della Seggiola on the back. Now it is a good thing to
have such a picture about one, any way. I looked at this through the
microscope. It was surprisingly well done; and I suppose the watches are
as good as most."

"Better than yours and mine, Del?" said Laura, demurely.

"Why, no,--I suppose not so good. But I was thinking more of the
picture."

"Oh!" said Laura.

I was on the point of asking what she thought of Knight's Shakspeare,
when the bell rang and Polly brought up Miss Russell's card.

Miss Russell was good and pretty, with a peach-bloom complexion, soft
blue eyes, and curling auburn hair. Still those were articles that could
not well be appraised, as I thought the first minute after we were
seated in the parlor. But she had over her shoulders a cashmere scarf,
which Mr. Russell had brought from India himself, which was therefore a
genuine article, and which, to crown all, cost him only fifty dollars.
It would readily bring thrice that sum in Boston, Miss Russell said. But
such chances were always occurring. Then she described how the shawls
were all thrown in a mess together in a room, and how the captains of
vessels bought them at hap-hazard, without knowing anything about their
value or their relative fineness, and how you could often, if you knew
about the goods, get great bargains. It was a good way to send out fifty
or a hundred dollars by some captain you could trust for taste, or the
captain's wife. But it was generally a mere chance. Sometimes there
would be bought a great old shawl that had been wound round the naked
waist and shoulders of some Indian till it was all soiled and worn. That
would have to be cut up into little neck-scarfs. But sometimes, too, you
got them quite new. Papa knew about dry goods, luckily, and selected a
nice one.

Part of this was repulsive,--but, again, part of it attractive. We don't
expect to be the cheated ones ourselves.

The bell rang again, and this time Lieutenant Clarence Herbert entered
on tiptoe: not of expectation particularly, but he had a way of
tiptoeing which had been the fashion before he went to sea the last
time, and which he resumed on his return, without noticing that in the
mean time the fashion had gone by, and everybody stood straight and
square on his feet. The effect, like all just-gone-by fashions, was to
make him look ridiculous; and it required some self-control on our part
to do him the justice of remembering that he could be quite brilliant
when he pleased, was musical and sentimental. He had a good name, as I
sighed in recalling.

We talked on, and on, instinctively keeping near the ground, and hopping
from bough to bough of daily facts.

When they were both gone, we rejoiced, and went up-stairs again to our
work and our rocking. Laura hummed,--

"'The visit paid, with ecstasy we come,
As from a seven-years' transportation, home,
And there resume the unembarrassed brow,
Recovering what we lost, we know not how,'--

"What is it?--

"'Expression,--and the privilege of thought.'"

"What an idea Louisa Russell always gives one of clothes!" said Laura.
"I never remember the least thing she says. I would almost as soon have
in the house one of those wire-women they keep in the shops to hang
shawls on, for anything she has to say."

"I know it," I answered. "But, to tell the truth, Laura, there was
something very interesting about her clothes to me to-day. That scarf!
Don't you think, Laura, that an India scarf is always handsome?"

"Always handsome? What! all colors and qualities?"

"Of course not. I mean a handsome one,--like Louisa Russell's."

"Why, yes, Del. A handsome scarf is always handsome,--that is, until it
is defaced or worn out. What a literal mood you are in just now!"

"Well, Laura,"--I hesitated, and then added slowly, "don't you think
that an India scarf has become almost a matter of necessity? I mean,
that everybody has one?"

"In Boston, you mean. I understand the New York traders say they sell
ten cashmere shawls to Boston people where they do one to a New-Yorker."

"Mrs. Harris told me, Laura, that she _could not_ do without one. She
says she considers them a real necessary of life. She has lost four of
those little neck-scarfs, and, she says, she just goes and buys another.
Her neck is always cold just there."

"Is it, really?" said Laura, dryly. "I suppose nothing short of cashmere
could possibly warm it!"

"Well, it is a pretty thing for a present, any way," said I, rather
impatiently; for I had settled on a scarf as unexceptionable in most
respects. There was the bargain, to begin with. Then it was always a
good thing to hand down to one's heirs. The Gores had a long one that
belonged to their grandmamma, and they could draw it through a gold
ring. It was good to wear, and good to leave. Indicated blood,
too,--and--and----In short, a great deal of nonsense was on the end of
my tongue, waiting my leave to slip off, when Laura said,--

"Didn't Lieutenant Herbert say he would bring you Darley's 'Margaret'?"

"Yes,--he is to bring it to-morrow. What a pretty name Clarence Herbert
is! Lieutenant Clarence Herbert,--there's a good name for you! How many
pretty names there are!"

"You wouldn't be at a loss to name boys," said Laura, laughing,--"like
Mr. Stickney, who named his boys One, Two, and Three. Think of going by
the name of One Stickney!"

"That isn't so bad as to be named 'The Fifteenth of March.' And that was
a real name, given to a girl who was born at sea--I wonder what _she_
was called 'for short.'"

"Sweet fifteen, perhaps."

"That would do. Yes,--Herbert, Robert," said I, musingly, "and Philip,
and Arthur, and Algernon, Alfred, Sidney, Howard, Rupert"----

"Oh, don't, Del! You are foolish, now."

"How, Laura?" said I, consciously.

"Why don't you say America?"

"Oh, what a fall!"

"Enough better than your fine Lieutenant, Del, with his taste, and his
sentiments, and his fine bows, and 'his infinite deal of nothing.'"

I sighed and said nothing. The name-fancies had gone by in long
procession. America had buried them all, and stamped sternly on their
graves.

"What made you ask about Darley's 'Margaret,' Laura?"

"Oh,--only I wanted to see it."

"Don't you think," said I, suddenly reviving with a new idea, "that a
portfolio of engravings is a handsome thing to have in one's parlor
or library? Add to it, you know, from time to time; but begin with
'Margaret,' perhaps, and Retzsch's 'Hamlet' or 'Faust,'--or a collection
of fine wood engravings, such as Mrs. Harris has,--and perhaps one of
Albert Duerer's ugly things to show off with. What do you think of it,
Laura?"

"Do you ever look at Mrs. Harris's nowadays, Del?"

"Why, no,--I can't say I do, now. But I have looked at them when people
were there. How she would shrug and shiver when they _would_ put their
fingers on her nice engravings, and soil, or bend and break them at
the corners! Somebody asked her once, all the time breaking up a fine
Bridgewater Madonna she had just given forty dollars for, 'What is
this engraving worth, now?' She answered, coldly,--'Five minutes ago I
thought it worth forty dollars: now I would take forty cents for it.'"

"Not very polite, I should say," said Laura. "And rather cruel too,
on the whole; since the offence was doubtless the result of ignorance
only."

"I know. But Mrs. Harris said she was so vexed she could not restrain
herself; and besides, she would infinitely prefer that he should be
mortally offended, at least to the point of losing his acquaintance, to
having her best pictures spoiled. She said he cost too much altogether."

"She should have the corners covered somehow. To be sure, it would be
better for people to learn how to treat nice engravings,--but they
won't; and every day somebody comes to see you, and talks excellent
sense, all the while either rolling up your last 'Art Journal,' or
breaking the face of Bryant's portrait in, or some equal mischief. I
don't think engravings pay, to keep,--on the whole; do you, Del?" And
Laura smiled while she rocked.

"Well, perhaps not. I am sure I shouldn't be amiable enough to have mine
thumbed and ruined; and certainly, if they are only to be kept in a
portfolio, it seems hardly worth while."

"So I think," said Laura.

This vexatious consideration--for so it had become--of how I should
spend my aunt's money, came at length almost to outweigh the pleasure of
having it to spend. It was perhaps a little annoyance, at first, but by
repetition became of course great. The prick of a pin is nothing; but if
it prick three weeks, sleeping and waking, "there is differences, look
you!"

"What shall I do with it?" became a serious matter. Suppose I left the
regions of art and beauty particularly, and came back and down to what
would be suitable on the whole, and agreeable to my aunt, whose taste
was evidently beyond what Albany could afford, or she would not have
sent me to the Modern Athens to buy the right thing. Nothing that would
break; else, Sevres china would be nice: I might get a small plate, or
a dish, for the money. Clothes wear out. Furniture,--you don't want to
say, "This chair, or this bureau or looking-glass, is my Aunt Allen's
gift." No, indeed! It must be something uncommon, _recherche_, tasteful,
durable, and, if possible, something that will show well and sound well
always. If it were only to spend the money, of course I could buy a
carpet or fire-set with it. And off went my bewildered head again on a
tour of observation.

[To be continued.]

* * * * *


HARBORS OF THE GREAT LAKES.


In a recent article upon "The Great Lakes,"[A] we remarked, that,
from the conformation of their shores, natural harbors are of rare
occurrence. Consequently, for the protection and convenience of
commerce, a system of artificial harbors has been adopted by the Federal
Government, and appropriations have been made from time to time by
Congress for this purpose; and officers of the United States Engineer
Corps have been appointed to carry on the work. It is to some extent a
new and peculiar kind of engineering, caused by the peculiar conditions
of the case.

[Footnote A: See _Atlantic Monthly_ for February.]

Most of the lake-towns are built upon rivers which empty into the lakes,
and these rivers are usually obstructed at their mouths by bars of sand
and clay. The formation of these bars is due to several causes. The
principal one is this:--The shores of the lakes being usually composed
of sand, this is carried along by the shore-currents of the lake and
deposited at the river-mouths. Another cause of these obstructions may
be found in the fact, that the currents of the rivers are constantly
bringing down with them an amount of soil, which is deposited at the
point where the current meets the still waters of the lake. A third
cause, as we are told by Col. Graham, in his Report for 1855, is the
following:--

"Although the great depth of Lake Michigan prevents the surface from
freezing, yet the ice accumulates in large bodies in the shallow water
near the shores, and is driven by the wind into the mouths of the
rivers. A barrier being thus formed to the force of the lake-waves, the
sudden check of velocity causes them to deposit a portion of the silt
they hold in suspension upon the upper surface of this stratum of ice.
By repeated accumulations in this way, the weight becomes sufficient to
sink the whole mass to the bottom. There it rests, together with other
strata, which are sunk in the same way, until the channel is obstructed
by the combined masses of ice and silt. In the spring, when the ice
melts, the silt is dropped to the bottom, which, combined with that
constantly deposited by the lakeshore currents, causes a greater
accumulation in winter than at any other season."

These bars at the natural river-mouths have frequently not more than two
or three feet of water; and some of them have entirely closed up the
entrance, although at a short distance inside there may be a depth of
from twelve to fifteen or even twenty feet of water.

The channels of these rivers have also a tendency to be deflected from
their courses, on entering the lake, by the shore-currents, which,
driven before the prevailing winds, bend the channel off at right
angles, and, carrying it parallel with the lake-shore, form a long spit
of sand between the river and the lake.

Thus, in constructing an artificial harbor at one of these river-mouths,
the first object to be aimed at is to prevent the further formation of a
bar; and the second, to deepen and improve the river-channel. The former
is attained by running out piers into the lake from the mouth of the
river; and the latter, by the use of a dredge-boat, to cut through the
obstructions.

These piers are formed of a line of cribs, built of timber, and loaded
with stone to keep them in place, and enable them to resist the action
of the waves. They are usually built about twenty or twenty-five feet
wide, and from thirty to forty feet long. They are strengthened by
cross-ties of timber, uniting together the outward walls of the crib.
Piles are usually driven down into the clay, inside of these cribs, and
they are covered with a deck or flooring of plank. As the action of the
currents is constantly tending to remove the bed on which the cribs
rest, and thus cause them to tilt over, their bottoms are constructed
in a sort of open lattice-work, with openings large enough to allow the
stones with which they are loaded to drop through and supply the place
of the earth which is washed away.

The effect of these piers is to concentrate and deepen the
river-channel, and to retard the formation of bars, though they do not
wholly prevent it. In the spring it is often necessary to employ the
services of a steam-dredge-boat to cut through the bar, before vessels
can pass out.

The portion of these cribs above water is found not to last more than
ten or fifteen years; so that it is now recommended to replace them with
piers of stone masonry, wherever the material is easy of access.

As to the cause of the shore-currents which produce this mischief, Col.
Graham says, in one of his Reports,--

"The great power which operates to produce the littoral or shore
currents of the lake is the prevailing winds; just as the great ocean
current called the Gulf Stream is produced by the trade-winds. The
first-mentioned phenomenon is but a miniature demonstration of the same
principle which is more boldly shown in the other. The wind, acting
in its most prevalent lakeward direction, combined with this littoral
current, produces the great power which is constantly forming sand-bars
and shoals at all the harbor-entrances on our extensive lake-coasts. To
counteract the effect of this great power, upon a given point, is what
we have chiefly to contend for in planning the harbor-piers for all the
lake-ports intended to be improved. The point which an engineer first
aims at, in undertaking to plan any of these harbor-works, is to
ascertain as nearly as possible the direction and force of the
prevailing winds."

The length of the Chicago piers is as follows:--North pier, 3900 feet
long, 24 feet wide; south pier, 1800 feet long, 24 feet wide; and they
are placed 200 feet apart.

Harbors of this kind have been constructed at Chicago, Waukegan,
Kenosha, Racine, Milwaukee, Sheboygan, Manitoowoc, Michigan City, and
St. Joseph, on Lake Michigan; at Clinton River, on Lake St. Clair; at
Monroe, Sandusky, Huron, Vermilion, Black River, Cleveland, Grand River,
Ashtabula, Conneaut, Erie, Dunkirk, and Buffalo, on Lake Erie; at Oak
Orchard, Genesee River, Sodus Bay, Oswego, and Ogdensburg, on Lake
Ontario.

For Lakes Huron and Superior it is believed that no appropriations have
been made, the scanty population of their shores not seeming as yet
to demand it, and those two lakes having in their numerous groups of
islands more natural shelter for vessels than Michigan or Erie.

Besides these river-harbors, Col. Graham recommends to Government the
construction at certain points on the lakes of sheltered roadsteads, or
harbors of refuge, to which vessels may run for shelter in bad weather,
when it may be difficult or dangerous to enter the river-mouths. These
are proposed to be made by building breakwaters of crib-work, loaded
with stone, and extending along the shore in a sufficient depth of water
to admit vessels riding easily at anchor under their lee. Many lives
and much property would undoubtedly be saved every year by such
constructions; for it is a difficult matter for a vessel to enter these
narrow rivers in a heavy gale of wind, and if she misses the entrance,
she is very likely to go ashore.

Another very important work to the navigation of the lakes is the
deepening of the channel in Lake St. Clair.

Between Lakes Huron and Erie lies Lake St. Clair, a shallow sheet of
water, some twenty miles in length, through which all the trade of the
Upper Lakes is obliged to pass. At the mouth of the river which connects
this lake with Huron, there is a delta of mud flats, with numerous
channels, which in their deepest parts have not more than ten feet of
water, and would be utterly impassable, were not the bottom of a soft
and yielding mud, which permits the passage of vessels through it, under
the impulse of steam or a strong wind.

Mr. James L. Barton, a gentleman long connected with the lake-commerce,
thus wrote some years ago upon this subject to the Hon. Robert
McClelland, then chairman of the House Committee on Commerce:--

"These difficulties are vastly increased from the almost impassable
condition of the flats in Lake St. Clair. Here steamboats and vessels
are daily compelled in all weather to lie fast aground, and shift their
cargoes, passengers, and luggage into lighters, exposing life, health,
and property to great hazard, and then by extraordinary heaving and
hauling are enabled to get over. Indeed, so bad has this passage become,
that one of the largest steamboats, after lying two or three days on
these flats, everything taken from her into lighters, was unable, with
the powerful aid of steam and everything else she could bring into
service, to pass over; she was obliged to give her freight and
passengers to a smaller boat, abandon the trip, and return to Buffalo.
Other vessels have been compelled not only to take out all their
cargoes, but even their chains and anchors have been stripped from them,
before they could get over. To meet this difficulty as far as possible,
the commercial men around these lakes have imposed a tax upon their
shipping, to dredge out and deepen the channel through these flats."

Col. Graham, in one of his Reports to the Department, writes as follows
upon the importance of this improvement in a military point of view:--

"Since the opening of the Sault Ste. Marie Canal, the only obstacle to
the co-operation of armed fleets, which in time of war would be placed
upon Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron, with that which would be on
Lake Erie, is at St. Clair flats. That obstacle removed, and a depth
of channel of twelve feet obtained there, which might be increased to
sixteen or eighteen feet by dredging, war-steamers of the largest
class which would probably be placed on these lakes would have a free
navigation from Buffalo at the foot of Lake Erie to Fond du Lac of Lake
Superior.

"It would be very important that these fleets should have the power of
concentration, either wholly or in part, at certain important points now
rendered impracticable by these intervening flats. It would no doubt
often be important as a measure of naval tactics alone. It would as
often, again, be equally necessary in cooeperating with our land-forces.
It might even become necessary to depend on the navy to transport our
land-forces rapidly from one point to another on different sides of the
flats.

"When a work like this subserves the double purpose of military defence
in times of war, and of promoting the interests of commerce between
several of the States of the Union in time of peace, it would seem to
have an increased claim to the attention of the General Government. If
any work of improvement can be considered national in its character,
the improvement of St. Clair flats, in the manner proposed, may, it is
submitted, justly claim to be placed in that category."

The plan proposed by the United States Engineers for this improvement is
to construct two parallel piers of about four thousand feet long, as a
permanent protection to the channel-way, and to dredge out a channel
between these piers, six hundred feet wide and twelve feet deep. The
cost of this work is estimated at about $533,000. This may seem a large
sum of money; but when it is considered that the value of the commerce
which passed over these flats in the year 1855 was ascertained by
Col. Graham to be over two hundred and fifty millions of dollars, or
considerably more than the whole exports of the Southern States for the
year 1860, more than a million of dollars per day during the period of
navigation, and that the increased charge on freights by reason of this
obstruction is more than two millions of dollars per annum, which of
course has to be paid by the producer, the investment of one quarter of
that annual charge in a work which would do away with the tax might seem
to be a measure of economy.

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