The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1873-06-16
From the Boston Journal.
Wreck of the California Aquarium
Car.

OMAHA, June 0.
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 railroad, about
noon on Sunday, June 9Th, with the pas
senger train that leaves Omaha for San
Francisco Mt that time.
The trip, so far, had been almost per-
feet success. With the exception of the
Holsters, among which there had been con-
siderable mortality, although forty-one
still remained alive and well, all the fish
were in first rate condition, and there was
every promise of our coming into Sacra-
mentO with large number 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 Chicago
and Omaha, in anticipation of the long
stretch of bad water country Immediately
west of us, and having all the preparations
for the rest of our journey in perfect order
was feeling very hopeful concerning the
result.
About thirty miles from Omaha, at Elk
Horn River, just as we were eating dinner,
there came a sudden, violent shaking 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 con-
fusion. 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,
managed to get out of the door into the
river, as the car was sinking was fol-
lowing them, when a 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 and wedged me in there. Then
a 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 rapidity that a second later escape
from the car would have been impossible.
We now found ourselves in the river, and
swimming back to the car, one end of
which rested ON bar and was out of wa
ter. 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.. Per-
rim received two cuts, one on the ear and
one on the head, which, though not severe,
bled profusely He was also considerably
bruised and famed generally. Mr.. Green
was famed and somewhat injured in the
back, though not disabled.
Consideringthat.. there were four tons of
heavy articles in the car, each weighing
from one hundred to one hundred thousand
pounds, and that they came pell-mell upon
us when the car went down, and that we
had less than seven seconds in all to leave
the car alive, we think that we were for
tunate to escape both from being 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 neglected, is
now total wreck, and all the fish are in
the ElkhOrn river.
have just been ordered back to Wash
ington with my two assistants, by Hon. s.
+. Baird. United States Commissioner of
Fisheries, to take 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,
In charge of California Aquarium Car.