Emerson on the Ohio and the Green Rivers
In June of 1850 Ralph Waldo Emerson made the first of his lecture trips to Cincinnati and the “West.” (He got as far as Galena, Illinois on the first trip). The transcendentalist philosopher and author was impressed by the Cincinnati Water Works: “the people do not let the Ohio River go by them with using it as it runs along. The water works supply the city abundantly & in every street on these dusty days, it is poured onto the pavement. The water offered you to drink is turbid as lemonade, & of a somewhat grayer hue. Yet it is freely drunk & the inhabitants much prefer it to the limestone water of their wells.”
Emerson was eager to visit Mammoth Cave, and thirteen people he met in Cincinnati decided to join him. The party left Cincinnati on Tuesday, June 4th headed to Louisville on the steamboat, Ben Franklin. Arriving in Louisville, they learned that the mail coach to Bowling Green, the nearest city to the cave of any size, could only hold nine passengers and had left for the day. So, after having bought all the available Roman Candles in Louisville for shooting off in the natural wonder, they departed on the steamboat, Mammoth Cave on Wednesday, June 5th, arriving in Bowling Green on Saturday morning, June 8th, after travel on the Ohio, Green and Barren rivers. The final leg from Bowling Green to the cave was an all-night trip by stage coach.
Emerson remarked on signs of flooding above the first story of houses along the Ohio, and observed on the Green River that every tree had a water line, 12 or 15 feet above the ground, marking the height of the last flood. Emerson’s observations of the Green River are intriguing:
“In the Green River, we disturbed ducks all the way before us, who clambered with their young up the banks, & wild turkeys flew before us from tree to tree. Where the river widened occasionally, lay long strata of dried leaves solidly matted together, deserted by the water, and when these are disturbed by thrusting a pole into them carburetted-hydrogen comes out in quantity, and if lighted, burns all over the river, & very dangerous accidents have repeatedly occurred.”
What Emerson called “carbureted-hydrogen” we call methane (CHч) and his description is accurate. Wetlands hold enormous amounts of methane: 30% of the methane in the atmosphere comes from wetlands. It is caused by the slow decomposition of plants and animal life. This microbial decay makes the water anaerobic. Methane is formed rather than COᴤ. But what wetlands store in COᴤ far outweighs the emission of methane environmentally. Not only do wetlands store COᴤ, they also absorb excess water from storms, provide a reserve during droughts, and supply fish and wildlife habitat, among other good they do.
The lock and dams on the Green River are now being removed, which will restore the extraordinary 50 foot depth of the Green River. The Kentucky Waterways Alliance is a key player in this effort.
For more on the benefits of wetlands and their storage of methane, see https://massivesci.com/articles/methane-trees-greenhouse-gas-wetlands/
I am grateful to Professor Tamara Sluss and Dr. David Wicks for assistance with this note.