Urbana union. [volume] (Urbana, Ohio) 1862-1872, 1867-06-19
URBAr7A. OHIO, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10 1867

CLlll UuE LLUblGS were uOb all OhGEs-
We had yet before hard road to climb
in the shape Of a perpendicular ladder
up the shaft, seventy-six feet high. Mr.
Cheesborough was the first to show US
how to leap for the ladder. OF course,
as the water was above the top of his
India rubber boots, they had filed with
water that would not run out, but in
stead, not only weighed him down as he
tried to, but so impeded his actions,
that it is probable that he would at that
time have gladly exchanged them for
the meanest brogans ever made. AT
length he vas compelled to stop and
empty them, after which he climbed
slowly upward, and with the help of a
man above regained the platform. Du-
ring this whole time we had stood in
the water, helping the Captain to hold
the boat, while our two companions
sought in it a relief from the searching
cold. When a call came for another to
ascend the ladder, tho writer thought
his turn had come to get out of the wet,
and therefore taking hold of the Cap
tain's hand, he cautiously advanced to
the edge Of the ''sumP." Feeling this,
one spring for dear life brought US to
the ladder, which was naturally seized
with a convulsive grip not easily to be
.relapsed. Another effort, and we stood
upright on the ladder, draining very
much like a bundle of wet clothes hang
ing up to dry. Coleridge's Ancient
Mariner, as he slowly drifted in his
phantom ship across the bar of the
harbor of his native place, describes The
feeling Of JOY which agitated him, and
we must confess to similar emotions,
when, after some of the most painful
climbing it has ever been our lot to do,
we once more came insight of the moose
by which we had made such di3fcilens
decensunl AUerao.
After scramble we lay exhausted on
the platform, and, having taken breath,
the remaining two ladders were sealed,
though with difficulty, and in moment
after We stood beside Mr.. Delanev's
cooking stove drying our clothes, and,
after drinking a cup of coffee, tried to
restore circulation by dancing like 4
KickapOO Indian. How my companions
got out l don't know, except that one
Of them was so exhausted as to render
it necessary to draw him part of SIC
way up by the rope. Though at the
time we tried to joke, ndsucceded, and
though it has been necessary, in writing
Of our adventure, to treat it somewhat
lightly, yet none of those who under
went it are at all disposed to under-es-
innate the risk we ran, or the narrow
escape we have had from a tragic ter
mination to our comedy. If, instead of
our boat sinking where it did, eighthun-
drcd feet from the crib, the accident
had occurred in the deeper water, eight
hundred yards distant, it is very unlike
ly that any Of US could have withstood
the intense cold of the water for the
length Of time it would have taken to
wade out. Had such been the case; it
is more than probable my readers would
have been spared the trouble Of wading
this article. When once we were out of
the tunnel, it was an easy matter to get
out the boat and many other things,
after which, at $40 P. NJ, the men be-
gan to open the gates Only one gate
was opened, and that not fully. By g
o'clock the men had raised it fourteen
inches. The rush and roar was tremen-
dous the tube seemed filed with a solid
sheet Of water that poured in SO fast
thatat g:20P. n. the men were instruct
ed to commence lowering the gates,
which were finally closed at 9:35, the
whole tunnel and shaft having been filed
in just fifty minutes, from first to last,
and it is now forever abandoned to the
roar Of the water. For myself I have
enough Of the Water Works.