The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-04-03 00:00:00

AN "ICE GORGE" IN AMERICA.

The Correspondent of the Standard, writing from New
York, March 11, gives the following interesting description
of an Ice Gorge in America :
Ice-gorges are just now possessing the minds of our
people. The excitemqnt resembles that of a great
battle imminent, the interest intensified by the uncer-
tainty as to the time when it will come off, and the
possibility of its not coming off at all. Every few
years this takes place. Sometimes ten years will pass
without a gorge panic, but usually they come every
few years. The last one of consequence was in 1873;
but one so great and engrossing as the present one has
not occurred in ten years or more. The region of these
eccentricities is not at'the extreme North, but within
a few degrees of the fortieth degree of north latitude,
oftenest in the Delaware, Susquehannah, Alleghany,
Schuylkill. and neighbouring smaller streams. Two
years ago it was in the Susquehannah, and now it is in
the Delaware. The gorge does not result from a severe
frost, but from a concurrence of conditions. A de-
scription of the one now at Port Jervis, in this State,
will illustrate these by a fair example.

The town of Port -Jervis lies in the valley of the
Delaware river, at the point near the northern corner
of New Jersey, and on the line between Pennsylvania
and New York. The region is mountainous, and both
banks of the river rise suddenly from the alluvial valley.
The river at that point is about six hundred feet wide,
and runs in a channel from ten to twenty feet deep.
The valley grows narrower at the town, and in the
river, some hundred yards below the town, there is
an island in the middle of the stream. Between the
town and the island the river takes a sudden turn
southward, making an obtuse angle of about 130
degrees. The fall of the river is about one degree.
On the 27th of February, when there was a slight
thaw, the ice started down stream; and the bend
in the river, with the island below, caused a block
in the ice. This block occurs every year, but
the thaw prevails generally, and finally sweeps the
current clear; but that night the temperature fell
suddenly, and thus fixed the jam at the island. For
fifty miles above the ice had started, and the chill was
not sufficient to arrest its down-floating, and thus
block after block of the ice crushed down upon the
dam below, until the fifty miles of broken ice was
jammed down into a space of three miles a good deal of
which distance the ice bulged up above the banks,
thus forming a ridges of solid impacted ice where the
river had been. Thg jammed ice stopped the 'under-
current of water to a great extent, and this caused a
Mod from the normal current of waters being diverted
into the valley. This flood swept away a number of
houses in Port Jervis on the 28th and Ist. -The cold
snap was then followed by milder weather, during
which the water of the Delaware percolated,
and found partial escape through the glacier.
In a day or two there fell all over the
valley of the Delaware above this point two
feet of snow in addition to the heavy snows of the pre-
ceding week. So heavy a snow has not fallen there
since 1854. Thus things have stood for several days,
and the danger of a destructive flood is very great. A
sudden thaw midht unlock the dam, and thus open the
channel before the melted snows from the mountains
above could reach Port Jervis ; but a sudden thaw
might also let loose not only the melted snows, but
also the flowing stream of the river for fifty miles up,
and these united must, it seems inevitable, come down
before the solid glacier would pass through the divided
channel at the island.
A sudden rain over that upper Delaware region
would be a calamity for which there is no remedy,
save an artificial removal of the gorge before it comes
down. A rain would of itself swell the stream already
overflowing, and at the ',same time precipitate the
snows, and this would inevitably sweep from the valley
the whole of that part of the town which is situated on
the plain. r
What is needed is a moderate and steady thaw, with-
out rain and without checks. The chances seem to be
a hundred to one against such a thaw at this season.
The situation is this. The gorge is a glacier, jammed
by stream and gravity, three miles long, six hundred
feet wide' and varying in thickness from sixteen to
near thirty feet. If the authorities of Pert Jervis
I wait for nature to remove this glacier they may sacri-
fice their town. What to do? They are not idle,
they are embarrassed. Besides the municipal authori-
ties there are other corporations interested. The
Delawareiand Hudson Canal, as well as the Erie Rail-
road, run through this narrow valley at Port Jervis.
These three are putting their heads together to solve
the knotty problem before them.. At the island there
is a larger stream—on the inside of the bend—and
a " bennykill " or shallower channel to the left of
the island. 'rhe bank in front of the glacier is twenty
feet high. The only way for relief is by way of the
right-hand channel, through which the water that per
colate now runs. Down this must go the mass of
lodged ice, when it does go. The stream that now
escapes from the ice down this way is a rapid one about
six feet deep and thirty feet wide. Below this the
Delaware is covered with a thin film of a few inches
of ice, but it is not obstrpcted' .and if the gorge could
be broken and started it might easily pass of Without
hindrance. The three powers concerned determined on
blasting out the ice, beginning at the lower end, thus let-
ting the blocks float down stream. Gunpowder did not
promise well, and nitro-glycerine was chosen for
blasting-. The trouble with blasting is in the absence