Curious Yard-Like Pens Constructed Of
Poles Rose Out Of The Water, In Which Boats Could
Find Shelter From The Rough Sea.
The entrance to the Raritan River is wide,
and above its mouth it is crossed by a long
railroad bridge.
The pull up the crooked river
(sixteen miles) against a strong ebb-tide, through
extensive reedy marshes, was uninteresting. I
came upon the entrance of the canal which connects
the rivers Raritan and Delaware after six
o'clock P. M., which at this season of the year
was after dark. Hiding the canoe in a secure
place I went to visit an old friend, Professor
George Cook, of the New Jersey State Geological
Survey, who resides at New Brunswick. In the
morning the professor kindly assisted me, and
we climbed the high bank of the canal with the
canoe upon our shoulders, putting it into the
water below the first two locks. I now
commenced an unexciting row of forty-two miles to
Bordentown, on the Delaware, where this
artificial watercourse ends.
This canal is much travelled by steam tugs
towing schooners of two hundred tons, and by
barges and canal-boats of all sizes drawing not
above seven feet and a half of water. The
boats are drawn through the locks by stationary
steam-engines, the use of which is discontinued
when the business becomes slack; then the
boatmen use their mules for the same purpose. To
tow an average-sized canal-boat, loaded, requires
four mules, while an empty one is easily drawn
by two.
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