USA > Texas > A comprehensive history of Texas, 1685-1897 > Part 9
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The Sabine, which for a portion of its length forms the boundary between Louisiana and Texas, is a river belonging to the black-prairie drainage, and its head-water erosion has reached northwestward into Hunt and Collin Counties. 1ts course is southeast until it reaches the intersection of the ninety-fourth meridian and the thirty-second parallel, when it turns southward and finds its way to the Gulf through Sabine Bay. It owes its name, it is said, to the Mexicans, who called it, after the eypresses which line its banks, the "Sabinas." Light-draught boats ply in it and run as high as Logansport. Its waters also forin the logging way by which the saw-mills at Orange receive their supplies of timber. Its total drainage area is twenty thousand four hundred square miles.
The Neches is also one of the more recent rivers, and has not yet carved its ^way back to the black prairie, but has expended its energies on the deposits of the timber-belt region, which owe their present topographic form between the waters of the Sabine and Trinity principally to its operations. Its principal affluent is the Angelina, and it finally mingles its waters with those of the Sabine in Sabine Bay.
488
A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
The Trinity River, although usually included with the rivers of the Grand Prairie, has stretched its arms over into the coal measures, and drains the area be- tween Red River and the Brazos, between the ninety-sixth and ninety-eighth meridians. Southeast of this its basin is more restricted, being limited on the east by the Sabine and Neches, and, as it nears the Gulf, by the San Jacinto on the west. Its total drainage arca is eighteen thousand square miles, and its estimated average discharge is seven thousand cubic feet per second.
Boats of light draught have made their way from its mouth as far up as Dallas, and work is now in progress to render its reaches below that city navigable.
The canyons of the Llano Estacado, which are occupied by the head-waters of the Brazos, are similar to those of the Red River, and an idea of the amount of water in them can be had from the fact that the Silver Falls of White River, a tributary of the Salt Fork, furnish thirteen million gallons daily. As in the case of Red River, the waters, after passing out from the plains, sink into the sands, and the lower reaches are strongly impregnated with salt and gypsum until the beds of the permian are crossed. The northwestern portion of the drainage basin of the Brazos is very wide, and its forks, Elm, Double Mountain, and Salt, spread over two degrees of latitude. As it flows southward, however, the main basin narrows until in Brazoria County it is less than ten miles in width. Its total drainage area, which is the greatest in the State, is estimated at fifty-nine thousand six hundred square miles.
In its flow towards the Gulf the Brazos crosses the various formations with their rock-sheets of different hardness, its general course being almost at right angles to the strike of the beds .. It has on this account a very tortuous channel, flowing through a valley which in places is wide with bluff hill-sides bordering. it on either side, while at others these bordering hills close in upon the channel and it flows in narrower confines. The former phase is well shown in Young County, while in the western part of Palo Pinto County the latter condition prevails. After reaching the limestones of the cretaceous in Hood County, the valley has a width, including the uplands, of from five to ten miles, and is timbered with oak, pecan, etc .; but on reaching the softer rock materials of eastern Bosque and Hill Counties the valley widens and the first bottom has occasionally a width of as much as two miles, and the second bottom spreads five miles on either side of it.
In the Lignitic Plain the bottom lands are usually wide, with growth of large timber, -oak, elm, ash, pecan, etc. In this area there occurs a feature which is repeated in the Coast Prairies. In Robertson County the Brazos valley not only includes the river itself, but the Little Brazos as well. In other words, the Little Brazos occupies a portion of the former channel of the larger river. This is also the case with the Caney or Canebrake Creek of Brazoria County. The red and muddy waters received from its northwestern branches are carried down and de- posited on the bottom lands from the black prairie to the Gulf, adding to their fertility year by year. Much of the coastal plain between the San Jacinto and the Brazos was formed in a similar manner when that area was the bay into which the Brazos poured its sediment-laden waters.
As has been already stated, the Colorado River and its tributaries represent the oldest drainage system of the State, and have had a most eventful career. It
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SILVER FALLS, CROSBY COUNTY.
489
DUMBLE-PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY, ETC.
began its work early in the history of the land, and, although destroyed by incur- sions of the sea, it revived as soon as the land area again appeared, and has now cut its way through the solid limestones above Austin, and enters the black prairie region through a canyon. Its head-waters reach to the New Mexican line, and to their work is due the beautifully sculptured northern scarp of the plateau region. Beginning as it does south of the main gypsum area, its waters are not so saline or gypseous as those of the rivers north of it. The largest streams among its tribu- taries are the Conchos, San Saba, Llano, and Pedernales. Its drainage area is forty-one thousand two hundred square miles, and its bottom lands, like those of the Brazos, are synonyms for fertility. Below Austin its valley is wide and the bottoms are heavily timbered with cotton-wood, ash, walnut, elm, etc. The soils vary from reddish sandy to dark alluvial loams. The uplands are high and rolling, with broad skirts of post-oak timber, cedar brakes, or open prairies.
In its flow through Bastrop and Fayette Counties numerous instances may be observed of the prevalence of lakes along its course in the earlier stages of its growth.
The Guadalupe and its branches, the principal one of which is the San Antonio River, are by far the most beautiful streams in the State. Having their origin in the plateau region, and being fed by the great springs which burst forth along its base, their limpidity brings them into still greater contrast with the turbid waters of the rivers east and west of them. That part of the Guadalupe from its inception to New Braunfels has traversed the rocky plain of the plateau, cutting itself a channel of narrower or wider limits as the conditions rendered possible. At New Braunfels it reaches the black prairie and flows among the rounded hills through timber- covered banks. Farther down the trees become larger and the great pecan groves skirt its banks and overhang its pellucid waters in all the loveliness of sylvan quiet, broken only by the cry of the wild turkey or the footfall of the deer. Its waters and those of its affluents have been used for irrigation for many years.
The Nueces drainage occupies far the largest area of any river west of the Colorado, and includes all of the streams between the San Antonio and the Rio Grande Rivers north of the Bordas. Its head-waters have cut their way deep into the plateau region, where they are fed by great springs from the underlying sands. The Nueces drains about nineteen thousand square miles, and in its course froin the cretaceous table-land to the Gulf has greatly exaggerated the tendency of all the rivers of Texas, having their source in or north of the lignitic belt, to be deflected eastward or northeastward in passing through the harder portion of the Fayette sands. Thus, from its source in the Nueces Canyon, in Edwards County, it flows south and southeast to the southern portion of La Salle County, where, suddenly swinging at right angles to its former course, it flows northeast for more than fifty miles, until, at Oakville, it resumes its normal course even more abruptly than it left it. It has numerous tributaries, among the principal of which are the Frio and Atascosa Rivers, Elm, Los Raices, Olmos, Salado, Prieto, Sulphur, Gamble, Lapara, Ramirena, Lagarto, and Penitas Creeks. The wanderings of the Nueces itself through this area are in part recorded by the lakes which still exist along some parts of its course, especially in La Salle and Dimmit Counties, where several long and comparatively narrow bodies of water are lound. Some of these are directly connected with the present channel and are still utilized by the water in
490
A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
time of flood, while others have been forsaken entirely and are now simply indica- tions of the course of the river at some former time. The character of the deposits along its lower reaches shows that this part of the basin has also been the site of many lakes, which have since been filled up and again exposed by the erosive action of the river or its tributaries in still later times. Indeed, it would appear in places as if the river had been a chain of lakes stretching in and out among the higher ground which formed its banks and now constitute the second bottoms and the highlands. The changes, of course, are not confined to times before the present, but are even now in progress in several places.
In spite of the facts that the drainage channels of the Nueces are so abundant, that many of them start from the plateau with streams of limpid water, and alto- gether make such a goodly show as water-courses upon the map, it frequently occurs that at certain seasons of the year many of them are perfectly dry and at the surface, at least, innocent of moisture. Indeed, a great alteration has taken place in these channels during the past forty years. Before the settlement of the country many of these creeks were constant in their flow, and the grass, beginning at the water's edge, stretched out on either side of them over wide, open prairies. The advent of the stock-men into this ideal and beautiful grazing region gradually worked a change in the conditions. The cattle ate down the grass and broke up the turf by tramping, so that the strong winds which prevail and the heavy rains which fall occasionally had full sweep at the underlying sand. Together these filled up the channels of the creeks to such an extent that they now carry water on the surface only after heavy or continued rains, although an abundant supply may be had in many of them at other times by sinking shallow wells in their beds. The channels are comparatively small and the valleys are not wide. The water is ·gen- erally clear except in time of flood, and the streams are fringed with skirts of timber by which their course can easily be marked for many miles across the prairies.
The Rio Grande, rising in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, flows southward through New Mexico to the Texas line. While it receives a considerable volume of its water in this distance, much is taken out for irrigation purposes and a part of what is left sinks into the sands which form its bottom, so that at Paso del Norte the volume is not what it wouk! otherwise be. Below this point it forms the boun- dary between Texas and Mexico for a distance of more than thirteen hundred miles, in which it receives no tributary of note on the Texas side except the Pecos. Taking this great length into consideration and omitting the Pecos drainage, the Rio Grande drains a smaller area in Texas than any other river, the average width of the strip drained by it being less than fifteen miles. The various channels open- ing into it are for the most part comparatively short, dry arroyos, which are the result of the character of the rainfall in the region. At times this is torrential, car- rying everything with it and washing deep channels, which, the rains being passed, may remain dry for months together before a fresh torrent broadens or deepens them. The topography of its valley is therefore of a much younger type than would be the case under different conditions of rainfall. The course of the Rio Grande from El Paso to the boundary between Coahuila and Chihuahua is approxi- mately that of the trend of the Rocky Mountains as manifested in the portions of that range crossing trans-Pecos Texas ; but at this point the river makes a great
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PALODURO CARON.
:منذلك محد السط مئات
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DUMBLE-PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY, ETC.
bend, "producing one of the most remarkable features on the face of the globe,- that of a river traversing at an oblique angle a chain of lofty mountains and making through these on a gigantic scale what is called in Spanish America a canyon,- that is, a river hemmed in by vertical walls." At the mouth of San Francisco Creek it again resumes its general southeastward course, which it maintains until the Gulf is reached. For many miles below El Paso the river-bed is a sandy plain, which is often entirely dry or with water standing in pools. At other times great floods pour down its channel and spread out into the valley. Farther down the river the hills draw closer in, its channel is more contracted, and the canyons and rapids begin as the Bofecillos Mountains are reached. Between the canyons which mark the passage through the different ranges (San Carlos, San Vincente, Carmen etc., of the boundary survey) the valley is narrow and broken. Below San Fran cisco Creek, as far as the northern line of Webb County, it flows in a valley cut through the limestones and clays of the cretaceous. This valley is in places three or four miles in width, and the river meanders through it, leaving broad valleys on one side or the other, which are fertile and susceptible of irrigation by its waters. In other places it, too, forms canyons, and the valley and the channel are co-exten- sive. Throughout the lower portion of this reach the river is thrown into a series of rapids by the beds of harder rocks forming obstructions to its flow as the gentle dip carries them down to the water-level. Below the Maverick-Webb county line, the valley, narrow in places and widening out in others, is also hemmed in by high hills, and the rapids continue at intervals nearly to Roma. Below Roma the river flows through banks of sand, limy sandstone, and silt in a channel which is continu- ally changing, and finally it debouches into the Gulf through a delta, as it extends the land area outward by the amount of sediment it carries. The Rio Grande is navigable for boats of light draught as far north as Edinburg or Hidalgo, in the county of that name, and under favorable circumstances they ply even as high as Rio Grande City.
The principal affluent of the Rio Grande in Texas is the Pecos River, and it has even been suggested that the Pecos is the older river of the two, and that the capture of its channel by the Rio Grande is a work of comparatively recent times. The head-waters of the Pecos are found in New Mexico just south of those of the Canadian, and as it flows southward it takes the same general course as the Rio Grande, and for the same reason, following the eastern flank of the mountains as the latter does the west and centre.
The streams of the Reynosa are the consequence of and assistants in its erosion, their head-waters being now supplied from springs near its inner margin. Upon the elevation of the Coast Prairies their channels were extended to the Gulf. The San Jacinto is marked by lake conditions in the Reynosa Plain, but when it reaches the Coast Prairies it flows gently through banks of clay and sandl to San Jacinto Bay. Buffalo Bayou, a stream with narrow bottoms and steep banks of clay and sand, also empties its sluggish waters into the same bay.
Similar streams are the Bernards, Lavaca, Aransas, etc.
Still younger are the creeks of the Coast Prairies, which occupy positions between and parallel to the courses of the larger streams.
Islands .-- The fringe of islands and peninsulas along the coast are for the most
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492
A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
part keys, formed by the action of the waves of the Gulf and separated from the mainland by sounds or bays. These islands border the entire coast, but east of Galveston they occur only as shoals or drowned islands. Beginning on the east we have Sabine Bank, Trinity Shoal, and Ship Shoal with their connecting bars ; then Bolivar Peninsula, followed by Pelican Spit to Galveston. Galveston Island and an unnamed peninsula mark the sea-line to the mouth of the Brazos. From the head of Matagorda Bay the various peninsulas and islands form a line almost continuous to the mouth of the Rio Grande, and vessels may ply the entire distance in the land-locked bays and lagoons. These lagoons and bays, separating the outer fringe from the mainland, have a width of from ten to twenty miles. The islands are usually banks of sand, covered with sand dunes fifteen to twenty feet high, which are shifted by every wind. The longest of these islands is that extending from Corpus Christi Bay to Brazos Santiago, a distance of more than one hundred miles, and is named Padre Island.
Lakes .- Texas has no large lakes, but scattered through the various parts of the State there are many small bodies of water, some of which are closely connected with the rivers, occurring in the bottomis reached by the flood waters, or marking an entirely deserted channel of the stream. Others occupy depressions and are fed by springs or by the drainage of the surrounding country, while a few are formed in "sink-holes," the source of supply being not so apparent. The most of the lakes within the Coastal Slope are within the Lignitic Plain. Among these may be noted Grand Lake in Montgomery County, Clear Lake in Harris County, Eagle Lake in Colorado County, Espantosa Lake in Dimmit County, and many others. In Cameron and Hidalgo Counties there are several salt lakes, one of which is about a mile in diameter, and the chain of salt lakes in the basin between the Diabolo and Guadalupe Mountains has already been mentioned. The lakes of the Llano Estacado vary in size from half a mile in diameter to Sabinas Lake, in Gaines County, which is six miles long and four miles in width. These lakes are numerous, some of them, like the Sabinas, being salt water, but many of them are fresh, being fed by springs around their sides. In addition to these there are hundreds of others known as wet- weather lakes, which hold water during a portion of the year.
CLIMATE.
A region of such extent must necessarily present great diversity of climatic conditions. The eastern portion of the State lies within the humid belt, a large area in Central Texas is subhumid, while portions of West Texas, especially in the basin of the Rio Grande, are distinctly arid, some of them presenting well-marked desert phenomena.
Rainfall .- The belt of greatest rainfall is confined to the coastal plain, the average at Galveston being given at 52 inches and at Palestine at 47 inches. This decreases southward, however, and varies greatly through different years. Thus, the " Bulletin of the Texas Weather Service" gives the rainfall of Galveston for the year 1893 (which was extrentely dry), at 35-48 inches ; Palestine, 30.58 inches ; Corpus Christi, 20.50 inches ; and Fort Brown, 14.36 inches.
The average rainfall of the black-prairie region is about 35 inches, but in 1893 the records show at Austin only 17.77 inches ; Paris, 33.70 ; San Antonio,
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FALLS OF THE LLANO-SOUTH OF LONG MOUNTAIN.
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DUMBLE-PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY, ETC.
18.30 ; and Waco, 22.13. In the plateau region, the rainfall, which is usually somewhat smaller, especially towards the west, in the subhumid belt, has been considerably less for two or three years past, falling as low as 16.96 at Boerne and 7.07 at Fort Clark, in 1893.
The Central-Basin Region lies largely in the subhumid belt, and he average annual rainfall closely approximates 25 inches. In 1893 it varied from 11.92 at Brownwood to 21.85 at Graham and 19.08 at Albany. The rainfall of the Panhandle, although usually a little under 20 inches annually, in some years nearly doubles that amount, 37.07 inches being reported at Fort Elliott in 1885.
West of the Pecos the decrease is equally marked, for, while the average of five years at Fort Davis gave an annual precipitation of nearly 20 inches, the aver- age at El Paso did not exceed 13 inches, and in 1893 it was only 10.86 inches.
In a report on the rainfall of the Pacific Slope and Western States and Terri- tories, made in 1888, General Greely, chief signal officer, does not hesitate to ex- press the opinion "that the trans-Mississippi and trans-Missouri rainfall is slightly increasing as a whole," and states that a continuous record, kept at Austin and covering thirty-two years, shows that the mean rainfall during the last sixteen years is 5. 1 inches greater than for the first sixteen. This is borne out by the records at Ringgold Barracks and at Fort Bliss. An examination of this report shows that the least yearly rainfall known in Texas varied from 4 inches about El Paso to 40 inches in a narrow belt east of Dallas, while the heaviest yearly rainfall recorded gives 20 inches on the Rio Grande, 70 inches at Houston, and 11 inches in Northeast Texas.
Temperature .- The temperature varies as widely as the rainfall, the least variation in the extremes being in the coast country, while the greatest is in the trans-Pecos and Panhandle. During 1893 the mean temperature at Galveston was 70.3°, with a minimum of 37° and a maximum of 92º F. At Amarillo, with a mean of only 56. 1º, a minimum of 4° was observed and a maximum of 102º F. At Fort Hancock, on the Rio Grande, the greatest variation of the year is found, -a minimum of 3º and a maximum of 110º F.,-although its mean is 10° below that of Galveston, being only 59.8º F. The following statement from the reports of the weather bureau gives the maxima and minima for the months of July and December, 1893, for the several places mentioned :-
JULY.
DECEMBER.
Min.
Max.
Min.
Max.
Galveston
71º
92°
37°
74º
Palestine
70°
26°
Austin
70°
100°
29º
79°
Abilene
670
102
21°
Srº
Amarillo
61º
98º
17º
65°
Fort Hancock
56°
107º
4º
76°
The apparently higher temperature of the western part of the State is largely counteracted by the elevation of the region, dryness of the atmosphere, and the breezes, which are almost continuous ; and to this must be added the fact that the nights are cooler than on the coast.
The rapid changes of temperature accompanying the "northers" is a feature of interest. From a summer heat the temperature will fall within a few hours to or
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A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF TEXAS.
below the freezing-point. These sudden extreme variations are, however, very rare, and are confined to the midwinter months. Premonitions also precede them, well known to the older inhabitants, which give time for preparation to meet them.
In point of salubrity the climate of Texas is unsurpassed, the general exhilara- ting balminess of the atmosphere frequently giving rise to the expression that "it is a pleasure simply to live," and justly entitling the State to be called "the Italy of Ainerica."
FLORA.
The principal forest growth of the State is confined to its eastern portion, the westward extension of the maritime or Atlantic timber belt ending about mid- way between the Trinity and Brazos Rivers. These forests, which are mainly of pines, are in three belts. The lower one, the principal growth of which is long- leaf pine, reaches to within twenty miles of the Gulf and is succeeded on the north by forests of "loblolly" pine and hard woods, and these by a belt of short-leai pines and oaks, which stretches to Red River. Towards the western margin of this upper belt the pine disappears altogether and the forest consists of oaks, with hickory and ash. In the swampy bottoms bordering the eastern, gulfward-flowing streams, large bodies of cypress are found. In their fertile, alluvial plains are also found elms, catalpas, wild plums, and sumach, and in many places the undergrowth of vines and shrubbery is very dense.
These forests, covering so large a portion of Eastern Texas, are the basis of a great lumber industry, and furnish a supply of building material not only for the untimbered portions of Texas, but for Kansas and other Western States as well.
Among the evergreens none have a richer foliage than the stately magnolia, and the dark green of its satiny leaves forms a background well suited to the velvety softness of the great blossoms which cover it in the spring.
To the west of the pineries more open forests of post, black-jack, and other oaks, alternating with open prairies, occupy a considerable area in the lignitic plain, and continue westward to the Nueces River in a belt twenty to fifty miles wide. In the midst of this, in Bastrop County, a small body of pine occurs.
The bois d'arc is common along the banks of streams in Eastern Texas. Among the giants of the forest may be noted the live-oaks in the Colorado valley near Columbus.
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