The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-08-15
DELAWARE is LOW.
No One Can Remember When
the River Had So Little
Water as Now.
SEVERAL CITIES SUPPLY EFFECTED.
Islands Appearing and the Stream
Gradually Receding-Ford-
able in Many Places.
specfal to the jersey citu Nears.

Specialto the Jersey City Neus.
TRENTON, Aug. Is, 1S94.-The Delaware
| River is not quite out of sight, but it is get
ting very near it. AT no time within the
memory of man, and within the scope of COM
p~arative records, has the great, rumbllng
Delaware been SO low II borne such strik-
ing evidence of a great drought. James
| Boyle O'Reilly and other poets have sung
the praises of the river that is said to be as
| romantic as the Rhine. but the great ro-
mancer and canoeist would scarcely recog-
nike the tough looking river bed as it lies
exposed for seventy-fve miles, because the
dark, gurgling water no longer cover the
| secret of its weird bottom.
The Delaware River, one of the principal
navigable streams, has been getting lower
every year. Scientists have noted the
changing conditions, and now it is de-
clared by expert engineers that it is lower
| ing so fast as to threaten the water supply
of a number of municipalities.
A ride from the end of tide water, which
| is above the railroad bridge at Trenton, to
| the Delaware Water Gap, shows not only
the general result of the reduced number of
cubic feet of water flowing in the bed. but
| the immediate effect of the warm weather
| and the drouth. At twenty different places
/ llio U bOd VI UnO ' 00h IN ooO
| afoot with little or no Inconvenience, the
stony and gravelly bottom being sufficiently
exposed to give safe and steady support to
| the foot passenger. Fifty-six of the smaller
| streams that empty into the river from the
New Jersey shore are as dry as punk, and
| even the rain of the past forty-eight hours
has not raised the water enough to wash the
dust off the gravel. At Frenchtown and
| Milford there are two important creeks, II
| they are dry, and for a mile into the interior
botn are decorated with rusty stones that are
bleaching in the sun.
CANAL FEEDER Low.
The feeder of the delaware and Raritan
canal, which taps the Delaware above Bulls
| Island and flows twenty five miles, supply
ing the canal proper right in the city of
| Trenton, is lower now than it has ever been.
| 1t is as a rule from three to four feet below
high water mark. The Water Power, which
| flows the course OF the river bed and supplies
| power to the mills on the banks of the Della
( ware at Trenton, is low. but not enough to
| interfere vita the working of the mills.
The records in the Office of the State
| Geologist show that there has been a steady
| decrease in the flow of the water in this
river. Ashbel WEIGH, an engineer, made
observations in 1879, and in his report he
stated that when he first knew the Della
ware, some fifty years before that. the mini
| mum flow was 1000 cubic feet per second,
lust double the amount that flowed in 1879.
| There has been a gradual decrease, and in
| 1881 there was only /, 113 cubic feet during
| the drouth season, and the estimate now is
| that it is less that 600. There are 1856 mills
| of all kinds on the Delaware River above
| Trenton, using 1858 horse power, and not a
| few of these mills are now running on short
time. so as to husband the water. Unless a
tremendous amount of rainfall comes,
sooner or later there will be a stoDpage of
many of these mills.
NEW ISLANDS FORMING.
At several places in the river there is but
a narrow channel of running water. This
| is principally between Frenchtown and
! Phillipsburg. There has been a making of
shore on both sides, and at some places as
much as 40 feet of g~ravelly bottom reaches
out to the water line. and the fact that
shrubs and greens are growing on it indi-
| Gates that it has been permanently made
| Islands have sprung up during the last ten
wears that never existed before, and their
boundaries are growing fast, as is shown not
only by the deposit of gravel but the growth
of new greens.
At Phillipsburg and Easton the water is
lower than it has been for years, and this is
! indicated b. the fact that it is many feet
below the foundations on which rest the
piers of the four railroad bridges that span
the river at this point. The dam over the
Lehigh is exposed, all but twenty feet, and
over this a few inches of water is rushing,
andhad the drouth continued a few days
| longer no water whatever would have passed
over the lam. Above P%hillipsburg on the
Pennsylvania side, are strewn many thou
sand feet of logs in raft form. They nave
heen newly cut, but the owners could not
get any further down the river with them
than phillisburg, and were obliged to beach
them. and for a distance, of three quarters of
tamiIe these RATS lay upon the gravelly
shore. Just below Martins creek the bed Of
the river is much exposed, showing the reg
ular strata of brown stone from one side to
the other, making it very easy for any. per-
son to cross over with a a ordinary pair of
rubber boots. 8
WATER SLOWLY RECEDING.
Z On both sides2ef the stream the shore is
fast making land by the general reeeding of
the water, and at points as much as twenty
and thirty feet of new shore has been &C
mired. New islands are fast forming and
the old ones that have been acquired during
the past ten years are widening and the l ne
is very plainly marked because of the new
growth of green brush on them. One island
above Frenchtown is no longer an island,
hecause the channel on the Jersey side is
perfectly dry and people can pass over from
the main shore to the island with ease. At
Foul Rift, below Belvidere, but a few inches
of water are running, except a narrow chan
! mel that leans towards the Pennsylvania
shore. and here there are several points
where pedestrians could cross the river by
s-tenning from stone to stone. The residents
heTeabout say that at no time in their MEM
ory has there been so little water in the
river.
The drouth has had one bad effect upon
1.-The water and that is that it has bscome
Nbefouled by a green fungus that has been
ACQUIRED at many points along the river
front where the water has become separated
nv the rocks from the main stream and has
By the exposure to the sun acquired a
r~reenish and yellow fungus Shiny vegetable
growth that oozes out and flows down the
stream. Below PhiHipsbnrg and ON towards
pools, probably extending q half a mile or
/ more. all filed with this vicious looking
green matter. and large blocks of it can be
Seen floating down the river at different
periods during the day. 1t is suspected that
this necessarily pollutes the water supply OF
pL;llipaLnrn arnhartuillaa and Trantou