Of course it is. It’s the only river lucky enough to flow through Paris.
But more specifically, I’ve just started reading Seven Ages of Paris, an history of Paris by Alistair Horne, an Oxford professor. I had already noticed a pretentious use of obscure words, and then, just 4 pages in, came this passage:
"(The Seine's) broad and deep currents were not too swift, and hard turf or stone lined most of its banks. Early descriptions of Paris comment on the extraordinary capacities of the waters of the Seine to support heavy loads."
So is there any evidence (saline vs fresh, highly oxygenated, etc) that some waters have different “capacities” to support vessels? Or is this guy both pretentious and ignorant of physics?
I don’t suppose his bibliography cites these “early descriptions.” Anyway, looking at some historical maps of Paris, it looks like the city core was around a place in the Seine that is both wide and contains several large islands. I assume this makes that part of the river more navigable. though I’m no expert. The guy can get as flowery as he wants, but I’m guessing Paris’s evolution was driven by a banal mix of convenience and commerce.
He points to the factors that he is talking about - broad, deep, not too fast a flow of water, firm banks. And you can see what he means; a heavily-laden vessel, once it gets going, has a lot of momentum, and is difficult to handle in fast-flowing water. A vessel with two great a draught cannot sail in shallow waters. A long vessel cannot turn easily narrow waters. And soft or crumbly river banks don’t stand up well to being buffetted by large heavy vessels. Nor do they make good bases on which to construct the docks and piers required to load and unload heavy river traffic.
He’s not talking about the density of the water and its ability to float large vessels. As you point out, that would be ridiculous. He’s talking about the characteristics of the waters of the Seine - note the plural - to support river traffic which includes large and heavily-laden vessels. He’s talking about the waters as they flow in the channel of the Seine at Paris.
Saline water is denser than fresh, and so does support vessels slightly more effectively, but (a) the difference is not often material in real life, and (b) the waters of the Seine are not saline at Paris.
I’ll accept your interpretation, though the word “support” could have been better chosen. “Convey,” “permit,” or even “host” would have been more accurate in your view.
So Horne (the author) gets a break. But I’m still worried. I want to like this book.
I looked up the book you mention on Amazon and found the passage. The preceding sentence further clarifies what the other dopers have said:
Add that beforehand and the meaning of ‘waters’ is even more clear.
BTW in case anyone’s put off, apart from a few French terms thrown in (which one should expect in a book about France), I didn’t really see anything I would deem “obscure”. The style is certainly flowery, but nothing more than what one would expect from an Oxford professor who is writing a ‘biography’ characterising Paris as a woman - which I suppose could be seen as pretentious - but IMO it’s written in fairly populist, non-academic English.
That quote makes a lot of sense in a book written for the English. But I would actually turn it around. Europe has exceptionally good river routes. Thames is just a partial cushion for tides.
Were barges not powered by draft animals in the middle ages? Especially when used against the current it would be critical that the animals be able to find a sound footing and the quote “hard turf or stone lined most of its banks” might be tied back to that necessity.
For certain values of Western, yes it was. It was an important cross-roads in the Roman times. Later, it benefited from its position and the exceptionally commercially minded and unbelligerent policy of the Capet dukes. By late medieval times, it was the undisputed centre if France. By that time the Capets were kings and modern France was more or less built around Ile-de-France.
Frankfurt, Moscow or Buda had same sort of strengths, so exceptional must be viewed from an English perspective.
I’m not disputing the importance of Paris to France, given the incredibly centralistic nature of power in France, that’s pretty much given. Nor its importance as a European capital. But its primacy as a river port. I would tend to think if you’re looking for great European port cities, you’d go take a look at Dutch or Flemish cities, not Paris.
The guy is comparing to Thames and I see no quote for primacy. I f he ever writes a book about Antwerp, he’ll used the same sentence, just replacing the words “Paris” and “Seine”.
Cough the Italians might have something to say as well, such as: Genoa, Venice, Florence (which is not on the coast, but not far from it). Major fairs were also held in Rheims, and were more important in the early Middle Ages than anything in the north.
The comments to which he alludes were “early descriptions of Paris,” noting the “extraordinary” qualities of the river. Descriptions written at that time would have been more likely to be comparisons to the (often marsh banked) Loire, the (comparatively fast) Rhone, the (narrower and swifter) Meuse, and other rivers against which the Seine would have appeared “extraordinary” when evaluated for commercial use.
He makes no claim, that I saw, that the Seine was, objectively, “exceptional.”