Moreover, Bartram was describing not merely the New World, but one
of its most exotic regions, the subtropical forests, rivers, and
savannas that were so unlike the tame English countryside, even in
the Lake district. Bartram’s America was inhabited by tribes of
Indians, whom the English writers saw as “natural men,”
the survivors of an ancient civilization, now lying in mysterious
ruins, which also suggested many poetical and imaginative
associations.
Coleridge read Bartram’s Travels carefully, wrote thoughts and
extracts from them in his notebooks, and later withdrew images and
stories for his poems. Bartram’s influence is quite evident in
several major works of the period: This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison,
Osorio, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Christobel, Frost at
Midnight, Lewti and Kubla Khan.(116) Perhaps most strikingly,
Coleridge later used Bartram in The Biographia Literaria to describe
the poetic imagination. A passage in the Travels describes the
stratified relationship between rocks, clay, soil, and the trees
growing at the surface; to Coleridge, this seemed “a sort of
allegory, or connected simile and metaphor of Wordsworth’s intellect
and genius.”(117)
I wasn’t standing in quite the same place yesterday,
because I would have been standing in water.
But you can see the water is much higher than it was six months ago.
The head of Rayonier acknowledged Monday that there are problems
with the water it discharges into the Altamaha River at its paper
mill near Jesup but said the company is ahead of schedule on
cleaning it up.
The Georgia Water Coalition on Saturday ranked a stretch of river in
the vicinity of the mill second on its “Dirty Dozen,” a
list of the state’s most polluted or otherwise damaged rivers,
streams, wetlands and marshes.
“We are very committed to the water quality of the Altamaha
River,” Rayonier Chairman and CEO Lee Thomas said. “It’s
important to us, just as it is important to the people of southeast
Georgia. We’re working hard to improve the discharge.”
Rayonier’s pollution remains famous in song and story, such as in
this YouTube video.
WWALS is an advocacy organization working for watershed conservation
of the Willacoochee, Withlacoochee, Alapaha, and Little River
Systems watershed in south Georgia and north Florida through
awareness, environmental monitoring, and citizen advocacy.
-jsq
PS: They also recorded
another podcast
which starts out on what may sound like a completely different topic,
but which is actually quite related.
Who knew one of our local rivers was famous for pretty shiny rocks?
Jolyon Ralph and Ida Chau wrote, apparently in 2012,
Withlacoochee River Lowndes County, Georgia, USA
List of minerals arranged by Strunz 10th Edition classification
Group 4 – Oxides and Hydroxides
Quartz
var: Chalcedony 4.DA.05 SiO2
After Carnation Creek, Wendy applied and was accepted at university as a mature student, successfully studying ecology and land reclamation, presenting her own scientific papers. Then, eight years ago, she began putting her wisdom to work teaching the next generation to pay attention to the consequences of heedlessness, greed and ignorance about our dependence on the natural world.
Her innovative Youth and Ecological Restoration Program helps teenagers at risk. Some struggle with
South Georgia, all red and orange. Here’s more detail.
It’s also worth remembering that while our Floridan Aquifer does recharge somewhat, that much of its water has been there since the last ice age. So if we keep mining water at a rapid rate, the aquifer will keep falling.
At Georgia River Network’s Weekend for Rivers, 31 March 2012, Diane Shearer presented “A-lap-a-WHAT?” About, you guessed it, the Alapaha River. She grew up in Alapaha, Georgia, and recently returned to find the source of its eponymous river and to trace its path.
Here’s a slideshow of my pictures of her presenting her pictures. I think she’s going to post her slides somewhere soon.
Diane is a retired public school teacher and writer. She is a member of Atlanta Audubon, Georgia Ornithological Society, Georgia Sierra Club’s Smart Energy Committee, and serves on the board of directors for the Initiative to Protect Jekyll Island. Her first attempt at expressing her love for the Alapha River was a column she wrote for Facing South in the early 1980’s called “In Praise of Rivers.”
Here’s a map of the Alapaha River watershed in green (blue is the Little River Watershed, wrapped inside the cyan Withlacoochee River watershed).
The Alapaha River is 190 miles long. It rises in southeastern Dooly County, Georgia and flows generally southeast along and through Crisp, Wilcox, Turner, Ben Hill, Irwin, Tift, Berrien, Atkinson, Lanier, Lowndes and Echols Counties in Georgia and Hamilton County in Florida. Along its course it passes the towns of Alapaha, Willacoochee and Statenville. The river flows into the Suwannee about 10 miles southwest of Jasper, Florida.
There’s a Withlacoochee Riverkeeper forming about the watersheds of the Alapaha, Willacoochee, Little, Withlacoochee, and Alapahoochee Rivers. If you’re interested, ask to join the facebook group or contact me, river at quarterman.org.
Since the 1970s, state and federal regulatory agencies have allowed the destruction of
more than 200,000 acres of highly critical wetlands throughout South Georgia to increase timber production and agricultural yields and usher in residential and commercial development. These wetlands that captured water and slowly released it to streams no longer perform that important function. The result has been increased floods when it rains and record low flows when it doesn’t….
the greatest concentration of wetlands is in the Coastal Plain of South Georgia. Though these forested foodplains and wetlands may not seem directly linked to our rivers and streams, they play an important role in holding water during rain events and dispensing it during dry periods. The sponges and kidneys of our state, they mitigate major floods, lessen the impacts of drought, and clean the water that passes through them, while regulating the amount of freshwater entering Georgia’s coastal estuaries where commercially important seafood find critical habitat. Additionally, these wetlands provide important habitat for waterfowl and other wildlife.
Moreover, Bartram was describing not merely the New World, but one of its most exotic regions, the subtropical forests, rivers, and savannas that were so unlike the tame English countryside, even in the Lake district. Bartram’s America was inhabited by tribes of Indians, whom the English writers saw as “natural men,” the survivors of an ancient civilization, now lying in mysterious ruins, which also suggested many poetical and imaginative associations.
stories for his poems. Bartram’s influence is quite evident in several major works of the period: This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, Osorio, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Christobel, Frost at Midnight, Lewti and Kubla Khan.(116) Perhaps most strikingly, Coleridge later used Bartram in The Biographia Literaria to describe the poetic imagination. A passage in the Travels describes the stratified relationship between rocks, clay, soil, and the trees growing at the surface; to Coleridge, this seemed “a sort of allegory, or connected simile and metaphor of Wordsworth’s intellect and genius.”(117)
