Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1873-06-20
The Wreck OF the California Aqua
rum Car.
From the Boston Journal,
OMAHA, June 8, 1878.


The California aquarium car on its
sixth day out from Charlestown, N. H.,
having on board eleven new varieties of
fish not native to California, left Omaha,
going west, on the Union Pacific Rail
road, about noon on Sunday, June 8,
with the passenger train that leaves
Omaha for San Francisco at that time.
The trip, so far, had been almost
perfect success. With The exception of
the Holsters, among which there had
been considerable mortality, although
forty-one still remained alive and well,
all the fish were in first rate condition,
and there was every promise of our COM
ing into Sacramento with large num-
Der of at least ten of the eleven kinds of
fish which left the eastern coast.
took on three tons of fresh water at
Lake Michigan and Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
and three tons and half of ice at Chi.
cago and Omaha in anticipation of the
long stretch of bad water country imme-
diately west of our journey in perfect
order was feeling very hopeful concern
ing the result.
About thirty miles f,om Omaha, at
Elk Horn River, just as were eating din
ner, there came sudden violent shak-
ing of the car, then a crash, and then
the tanks and casks of ice seemed to
whirl about us in every direction in
most bewildering confusion. The next
moment the flooring of the car went to
pieces, and the water boiled up around
us in every direction. With some severe
bruises my two assistants, Mr.. Willard
T. Perrin and Mr.. Myron Green, man
aged to get out of the door into the riv-
er, as the car was sinking. | was follow
ing them, when heavy cake of ice
struck me ON the breast and face and
threw me back again to the very end of
the car, and the cakes of ice and tanks
piled up around me aud wedged me in
there. Then rush of water loosened
them again, and | made second effort
to reach the door, and moment after
found myself outside, just as the water
closed up over the door with such ra-
pidity that second later escape from
the car would have been impossible. We
now found ourselves in the river, and
swimming back to the car, one of which
rested on bar and was out of water
we climbed up, and crossing over to the
PROSTATE engine by plank, reached the
land. The current was running with
great velocity at this point, making the
situation much more alarming Mr.
Perrin received two cuts, one on the eaI
and one on the head, which, though moi
severe, bled profusely. He was also con
siderably bruised and famed generally
Mr.. Green was famed, and somewhat in,
jured in the back, though not disabled.
Considering that there were four tons
of heavy articles in the car, each weigh
ing from one hundred to one thousand
pounds, and that came pell-mell upon us
when the car went down, and that We
had less than seven seconds in all tc
leave the car alive, we think that we
we're fortunate to escape both from be.
ing crushed to death, and from being
drowned in the car.
The aquarium car, which had been
so carefully and thoroughly prepared for
its purposes that not even the smallest
detail IN its preparation had been neg.
lected, is now total wreck, and all the
fish are in the Elkhorn River.
l have just been ordered back to
Washington with my two assistants, by
Hon. Spencer f. Baird, United States
Commissioner of Fisheries, to take a
fresh supply of shad, and make another
attempt with them to cross the continent
under the auspices of the United States
Fish Commission.
LIVINGSTON STONE,