WALLS OF FIRE AND STONE
Rex Burress
Aside from the ominous “Wall Fire” near Oroville July 2017, various walls have been erected throughout the world ever since civilization brought different groups of people together, and now there is talk of a wall to cut us off from the beautiful country of Mexico.
A man-made wall, or a fence, generally indicates a certain concern about keeping something in or something out. Robert Frost spoke of this in his poem, “Mending Wall; ...Before I built a wall I'd ask to know/What I was walling in or walling out...”
Walls for different purposes have been built since civilizations began, mostly to block the passage of something. Prominent is the Great Wall of China to keep the Mongols out, or even the Biblical walls of Jericho and Rome. More recently has been the Berlin Wall. The trouble with billion-dollar walls is that time changes everything, including attitudes, and the wall-thrust of today could change into the friendship trust of tomorrow. “Something there is that doesn't love a wall...”
The man-made walls called dams on our rivers are built with the idea of obstructing water to retain it for future use, and although most dams are made with concrete, Oroville's very own Oroville Dam is a dam of many rocks, except for the concrete spillway...that has crackled in 2017.
The yawning mouth of the Feather River Canyon has spewed tumbled cobblestone out into the valley for immense amounts of time, and that ancient accumulation has been exploited for gravel and fill for the tallest earthen dam in America. The stone-beds were originally pilfered by dredgers seeking gold, evidenced by the great piles of rocks south of Oroville.
The flood-barricade wall in front of the Feather River Nature Center is largely made of river rock, gathered and fashioned from the gravel bars by Richard Harvey. The impressive walls of the Old Bathhouse are also native rock taken from the green-stone talus uphill from the Center in 1935.
Around my Oroville neighborhood are many stone decorations, mostly installed by large-rock provider Keith Sheenan of “mossrocks4you@yahoo.com” Oroville. On a smaller scale, deceased Rev. E. J. Cain once built a soil-containing wall of quality rock at his home on Clemo Ave, lovely jasp-agate he obtained from a rockhound in Susanville who he had influenced with a sermon; “You can't take it with you!.” The aged rock collector unloaded for father-in-law Pop Cain!
Oroville's famous China Wall, built in gold rush days to divert the river, is now under the waters of the Diversion Pool. A researcher was trying to make news by suggesting that Chinese had first discovered America long before Columbus, even hinting that the basaltic rock wall boundary markers between Oroville and Chico were made by 1400 A.D. Chinese explorers. Chinese may have helped build those long walls but it happened during the mid 1800's “Gold Mountain” episode.
Some of the most interesting natural walls are found in canyons, mountain sides, and stream walls all over the world. One thinks of Grand Canyon as being at the top of the list, but the Feather River Canyon, right in Oroville's back yard, is a very interesting gorge with a variety of steep walls. I have found some ideal sheer walls along the tributary streams, and one very nice display of glaucophane schist, tilted vertically like gigantic pictures in an outdoor art gallery, is plated against the banks of Spanish Creek at Oakland Feather River Camp near Quincy, CA.
The tilt of the small cliff is delightful to behold closeup from the ledge along the formation. There the music from the rapids echos against the bank, to the beat of the rubbery stemmed Indian Rhubarb swaying in the current. “Nature's processes build the best walls!”
“We build too many walls and not enough bridges.” --Isaac Newton