CHAPTER V

THE SCIOTO RIVER

VALLEY OF THE SCIOTO

The trench or valley of the Scioto River is sharply defined from Camp Sherman southward by high rock hills, and varies in width from 1 miles, 10 miles below Chillicothe and 2 miles below Stony Creek, to 3 miles, 6 miles below Chillicothe. At Camp Sherman it is 2 miles wide. This portion is 300 to 400 feet deep. North of the Camp the rock hills are absent except for 5 miles on the west side, the valley is shallow, not over 200 feet, and bordered by gently rolling hills of gravel, sand, and clay.

Throughout this length there is a low flat plain, the "bottom", which is overflowed by the river in flood, and across which the river winds from side to side. Between the flood plain and the valley walls, there are in places, higher flats or terraces of gravel and sand, some of these well above flood waters. Camp Sherman is located on one of these, the rifle range on another. The portion of the valley which is low enough to be overflowed by heavy floods varies in width; 3 miles north of the Camp it is mile, but just below Chillicothe it is 21 miles wide.

The river at most places winds across the flood plain in curves that are from 1 to 2 or 3 miles around. The portion of the valley here described in detail is 22 miles in length, but the river in this distance flows 31 miles.

As will be shown in detail, the river at low water is a succession of quiet stretches where the water may be 3 to 15 feet deep, with kneedeep riffles at intervals of rods or miles.

CHARACTER OF BOTTOM OF CHANNEL

The bottom is of sand, gravel, and cobble with large bowlders in places; only at occasional intervals is there mud bottom. Apparently at only one place is there rock bottom, and there only for a part of the channel width, directly east of Chillicothe. Snags occur at irregular intervals throughout the whole length of this portion of the river. They are most numerous on shallow bars, standing 2 to 10 feet above low water, but they are reported in certain quiet places entirely covered at low water.

RIVER BANKS

The river banks rise normally 8 to 10 feet above low water and are commonly of sand and gravel overlain by several feet of flood plain silt.

However, where the river impinges on a higher terrace the banks may be 20 to 40 feet in height, or, rarely, 60 feet. The banks are usually steep enough to offer difficulty in climbing. Artificial levees, at many places 16 to 20 feet high, have been built not to keep floods out of the lowland but to control the direction of their violent current. It is, perhaps, not out of place to here insert a note of warning to officers who may have come to military service from regions where there is not need of levees; the levees should not be broken, either to obtain material or to gain access to a river crossing, for any reason short of actual necessity due to the presence of a real enemy, because the flood current through such a breach may wash farm lands for 3 miles below or may permanently change the course of the river.

FOREST GROWTH

Both banks of the Scioto, throughout the length of the portion described, are wooded, with the exception of short spaces at long intervals. As a rule, trees occupy only the immediate bank or a few yards at most of the bordering lowland, but in places, commonly on the inside curve of river bends, the lowlands may be timbered for 100 or 200 yards back. Sycamore is by far the commonest tree, but there is much cottonwood, maple, elm, and willow. Without exception the largest trees in the whole region may be found along the river banks. Trees 18 inches to 2 feet in diameter are not uncommon; one sycamore 19 feet in circumference was noted. The temptation may be great to obtain material for military construction from the river banks. Locations from which such material is to be taken should be selected with care that its removal may not possibly cause damage by permitting washing of the banks. The accumulated experience of a century has taught every land owner in the valley that the trees protecting his bank or levee are more valuable where they stand than as timber. However, it is believed that with care to this end, much material is available. The lowlands on the inside of curves and abandoned stream channels back from the present channel are the most likely places. It is a fair precaution that no trees should be removed from any river bank or levee or from any part of the outside bank of a bend, except, again, under real military necessity. The effects of such removal can be seen in every place on the river where the bank is bare of trees; it is being undercut. Such occurrences may be seen in the high gravel bank back of the corrals in the lower end of the Camp, or in the low banks immediately above the Camp opposite the machine gun range. (See Plates 5 and 6 for examples.)

With the exception of the trees bordering the present stream bank and the banks of recently abandoned portions of the channel, no bottom forest remains.

Directly opposite the Camp, the "Miller cut off" of the topographic map, surveyed in 1905-6, has become the river channel, and the old

channel, is occupied only when the river is high. The old bed is now largely overgrown with willow from an inch to three inches in diameter, and the old banks yet retain their cover of maple and sycamore from post to tie size. In such a place there is a large amount of available structural material obtainable with less risk to river banks.

CHANGES IN CHANNEL BY UNDERCUTTING

In spite of all efforts to keep the river in its place there are changes, some slow, some rapid. Knowledge of these, particularly of the former, will permit forecast with fair certainty of the timber and bank conditions, position of channel in the stream bed, etc. The greatest tendency to undercut is on the outside of curves, where the current, in high water, is thrown strongly against the bank. Any undercutting means that the channel shifts by just as much toward the outside of the curve. The bank on the outside of a bend is almost always 10 to 12 feet high, steep, perhaps perpendicular, and the deep water lies on that side. The current is always less on the inside of such a bend, sand and gravel are dropped there, and the old channel is filled up just as rapidly as the opposite side is cut out, but by material from up stream. Such inside curves are almost always the locus of clean, bare, gravel bars with shallow water off shore, the banks are very low and frequently may be driven over with wagons; commonly there lies back of the river in such a bend, a sandy, washed bottom with unfilled remnants of old channels, too low to farm, that is let grow up as it will. There may be a width of 100 or 200 yards with large trees in it, and since the tendency of the river is to wash against the opposite bank, part of the trees from within these curves may be, in some cases, removed. These relationships are shown on Plate 5 B and C, and on 6 C.

So persistently does this condition obtain on the Scioto that it should be recognized by everyone having to do with it or its flood plain.

THOROUGHFARES AND CUT-OFFS

There occur, at many places in the flood plain of the Scioto, long, narrow, channel-like depressions of which the floors are only about 4 to 6 feet above low water of the river. These are called thoroughfares. They usually are so located that, when the river is in flood, they offer a more direct route for the water than the channel. In fact, they owe their existence to that relationship and are merely flood-water channels of the river, many of them occupied on a rise of about 6 feet. Frequently they are too low and wet to be farmed regularly, and often small ponds are found in the lowest places. These are not so much abandoned channels as potential new channels of the river, and they are closely watched by the bottom farmers for signs of impending change, and their upstream adits are commonly protected by levees. One of

these begins below the mouth of Deer Creek, and extends southeastward in small development across the bottom for two miles; almost opposite its lower end, a prominent one, shown on the map, cuts directly across the curve above the County Infirmary, and from its lower end, a similar channel runs southward directly alongside the Infirmary buildings. Should the Scioto shift its channel to the upper one, it would quickly, if permitted, occupy the other two, and a wholly new channel, 4 miles in length, would be the result. This thoroughfare is shown in fig. 9, p. 66.

PERMANENCY OF CHANNEL FEATURES

Though the tendency to shift its bed has been discussed at some length, the channel of the Scioto is fairly stable when compared with streams like the Missouri or the Mississippi below St. Louis. It is cut to such an extent in gravel, that its load does not shift rapidly under floods, as it would if its banks were sand or easily caving silt. Within the limits of the Camp Sherman quadrangle there have been two small abandonments of channel within 12 years, one at the "Miller cut off", the other at the mouth of Indian Creek, 4 miles below Chillicothe. The shifting of its channel laterally by undercutting is going on slowly at many bends. The river road to Columbus, 2 miles northwest of Kinnikinnick, has been rebuilt several times to allow for such movement, and frequent occurrences of piling or cribbing in present mid-stream tell the tale of thwarted effort to hold the slowly shifting channel in place. See Plate 5 B for another example.

The location of riffles and fords, of long reaches of shallow and deep water is, even over periods of many years, quite stable, though occasionally changing materially during some heavy freshet. Even the snags do not move much; in one known instance they have remained imbedded in the sands of a shoal for 18 years at least.

RIVER CROSSINGS

Bridges. The Scioto is amply bridged at Chillicothe for all purposes of civil life. On the north side of the city, the Bridge Street bridge, double span, steel truss, double roadway, serves all road traffic between Chillicothe and the northeast quarter of the Camp Sherman quadrangle, including the east-side pikes to Columbus and Circleville and pikes to Lancaster and Laurelville. Just below it are the Scioto Valley Traction bridge for the electric line, and the N. & W., double-track railroad bridge. On the east the Main Street bridge, steel truss, many span, double roadway, serves all road traffic in that direction, the most important being the pike up Walnut Creek to Adelphi. Three miles. southeast of Chillicothe, a many span, steel truss, double roadway wagon bridge serves the Londonderry and Richmondale pikes, and just below it, the main line of the B. & O. railroad and its recently

D.-View up-stream at Riffle 20; a new channel, the old one being to the right. The time has been too short since the shift to permit the stream to bring this portion into adjustment with the remainder. Hence, the river is swift, full of snags, and rapidly undercutting the bare bank on the left.

SCIOTO RIVER BELOW CHILLICOTHE AT LOW WATER. FROM LOW WATER TO FOOT OF CHANNEL BANKS IS ABOUT 5 FEET