28 MOUTH OF THE COLORADO—NOVEL MOORING PLACE. 
velocity. We allowed the skiff to drift in the direction of the vessel, and while still a long 
way off could hear the noise of the current striking her stem. We narrowly escaped being 
swamped as we came alongside, and succeeded with difficulty in getting on board. As the 
tide fell the swiftness of the flow increased, and soon the mighty volume was surging by with 
formidable violence. The schooner had come to anchor over a shoal, and owing to the rapid 
fall was aground before its full force was developed; a fortunate occurrence, as no anchors 
could have held her much longer. She had no sooner settled down in the sand than a bank 
commenced forming on the lee side, and in an incredibly short time a mound was raised to a 
height of several feet, with one or two sluice-ways, through which the water rushed from 
underneath the keel like a mill-race. 
About nine o’ clock, while the tide was still running out rapidly, we heard, from the direction 
of the Gulf, a deep, booming sound, like the noise of a distant waterfall. Every moment it 
became louder and nearer, and in half an hour a great wave, several feet in height, could be 
distinctly seen flashing and sparkling in the moonlight, extending from one bank to the other, 
and advancing swiftly upon us. While it was only a few hundred yards distant, the ebb tide 
continued to flow by at the rate of three miles an hour. A point of land and an exposed bar 
close under our lee broke the wave into several long swells, and as these met the ebb the 
broad sheet around us boiled up and foamed like the surface of a caldron, and then, with 
scarcely a moment of slack water, the whole went whirling by in the opposite direction. Ina 
few moments the low rollers had passed the island and united again in a single bank of water, 
which swept up the narrowing channel with the thunder of a cataract. At a turn not far 
distant it disappeared from view, but for a long time, in the stillness of the night, the roaring 
of the huge mass could be heard reverberating among the windings of the river, till at last 
it became faint and lost in the distance. 
This singular phenomenon of the ‘‘bore,’’ as it is called, is met with but at few places in 
the world. It occurs here only at the highest spring tides, and is due to the formation of the 
banks, the rapid rise of the water, and the swiftness of the current. In the course of four or 
five hours the river falls about thirty feet, and even at the last moment of the ebb runs with 
considerable velocity. ~As the torrent suddenly encounters the flood crowding up the narrowing 
channel, it is banked up and rebounds in a single immense wave that ascends for many miles. 
In very shallow places, where the rush is suddenly checked, it sometimes rises to a height of 
ten or twelve feet. When broken by an island it soon reunites. A vessel at anchor, exposed 
to its full influence, would incur a great risk of being dragged from her moorings and swept 
along till brought up by a bank or shoal. 
December 1.—This morning Captain Walsh made a careful examination to find a place where 
it would be possible to land the steamboat material and other stores, but the bank at every. 
point was found to be too shelving to admit of the discharge of freight from the deck of the 
schooner, excepting at high tide, and then the rapid fall of the water and the swift current 
would render the operation difficult if not impracticable. The gully near the house was again 
inspected. Near its head the sides are curved and the width and depth are just about suf- 
ficient to admit the hull of the Monterey, and bring the deck a proper distance above the 
level of the surrounding surface. At low water and during the neap tides of the coming 
fortnight she would have to lie, high and dry, fifteen or twenty feet above the river; a position 
so new for a shipmaster to place his vessel in that it was with great reluctance that Captain 
Walsh yielded to the necessity of the case and determined, at high water in the evening, to 
float his schooner in. At this season the flood during the day is by no means so great or 
violent as at night, and is unaccompanied by the ‘‘bore.’’ The surface at high water was five 
feet lower than it was last night, and it was impossible to take the schooner to 
position. She was accordingly anchored near the shore, in the most sheltered place that could 
_ be found, and to-night the attempt will again be made to haul her into the gully, and as ” will 
the desireg 
