The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1879-01-17
ICE BRIDGE AT NIAGARA FALLS.

ICE BRIDGE AT NIAGARA FALLS.
Spanning tLe Entire Width of Niagara
River just Below the Cataract.
From the Buffalo Courier
For some days q large amount of
snov-covered ice from Lake Erie has
been passing over the falls. At O'Clock
on Sunday morning the accumulated
mass of ice came to stand-stil beneath
the Suspension Bridge, and the watch
ers began to hope that there would be q
bridge with smooth surface. But the
huge dam of ice suddenly began to
heave, grind, and break up into frag.
ments with loud noise. At 10 o'clock
there wasia second stand-still, and 1t
seemed certain that the bridge had been
formed, but at in the afternoon there
was third and more severe disturb
ance.
Great hummocks, weighing hundreds
OF tons. were pushed into the air and
remained there as monuments of the
fearful battle. Large boulders were
torn from the shore and swept into the
stream, and the solitary fir which was
wont to mark the landing place of the
ferry became victim to the warning
elements, though ordinarily it stands
three feet above high water. The slow,
awful strength of the Infatuated waters
was SO apparent that it seemed as if
they must rend the great gorge in twain
and escape from their thralldOm by some
new road; but there was only one gate
way for them, and, as they could not
break the mile-wide dam in two, they
lifted it up bodily and swept away be-
meath. Having thus succumbed, the
water allowed the ice to rest above it,
accepting the yoke which it could not
break, despite its boosted strength. And
now the victor rests quietly, torn and
ragged it is true, but invincible; and so
it will remain until the beams of the
spring sun deprive it of its strength,
and once more restore Niagara to its
accustomed freedom. The bridge is
nearly mile in length, extending from
line drawn perpendicularly to Point
Lookout, in the American Park, half
way to the railroad bridge, and filling
the gorge from shore to shore.
The first view of the Falls brings the
heart up into the mouth with a shock
that is almost painful in its suddenness
and force. Every thing is SO changed,
SO TRANSPORTED. Ice everywhere! Ice
upon the rocks, upon the trees, en-
croaching upon the cataract itself and
deadening its roar, even stealing away
a large portions of its power, to all
seeming. As the spectator stands upon
this point the wind blows the spray into
his face, and soon cover him all over
with jewels, but what cares he for the
spray in the enthusiasm of the glorious
view! In the park the ice has been as
destructive as it is beautiful, and though
it has robed the trees and buildings in
snowy beauty, it has torn down huge
limbs by its overpowering weight.
Looking over to the Canadian shore, the
observer can see huge icicles of many
tons weight hanging like the ropey locks
on the foreheads of giants in the story
books. But these sights are nothing
to the broad sheet of wrin-
kled snow.ice which lies at his feet.
There it is-the conqueror of Niagara
in the sunlight calmly and
peacefully.
Beside the rotunda which stands at
the base of the American fall noun
tain of snowy spray ice towers up eighty
feet high, and is each day climbing
higher and higher toward the summit
The dome of the rotunda bears an ice
crown of exceeding beauty and along
the roof of the dressing shed are curl
Gus ice formations which nothing less
than Photographic camera can adequate
ly picture. Giant icicles hang from the
cliffs and every once in while a huge
fragment comes tumbliDg down. The
ice is perfectly white and seemingly
quite porous, but excessively hard
frozen. Its appearance is exactly that
of spun glass. 1t is said that the spray |
which formed this ice was perfectly !
pure, and that if a ton of it were melted |
it would produce no appreciable guam
tity of sediment. The ice mountain is |
still in comparative infancy, but if the
wind and the mercury are favorable it
will soon be in condition to form a
coasting hill for the people as it did
during the winter of 1875.
The great ice bridge itself is a coun-
terpart in miniature of an Alpine glacier.
You have the rough, broken surface,
the hummocks reaching ten, fifteen,
twenty feet into the air, the startling
assures gaping perhaps with depth of
thirty feet in the solid ice; and you
have the pure snow ice itself in million
strange and inexplicable shapes; but
here is an association of terror in
this place which does not belong to the
genuine glacier, and which may come
from the muffled roar of the waterfall,
perchance the thought of 200 feet of
water seething and boiling beneath your
Feet. Many of our readers have stood
On the bank beside the whirlpool rapids
and seen the wrathful waters mound up
ward toward the sky in thousand con-
ending currents, as they battle to
escape from their prison walls. Imag-
me this agitated surface suddenly be-
coming petrified, and every broken
wave hating just where it was, and this
will give an idea of the magnitude of
his structure. In thickness it is prob
IDLY about sixty feet, while the surface
If the ice is at least half that distance
rom the surface of the water. There
ire crevasses twenty-five or thirty feet
n depth, and yet they show no signs of
water. As we have said before, the sur
ace of the ice bridge or ice field for it
8 really that) is exceedingly rough, and
he work of crossing it is very fatiguing.
Before long, however, road will be
from the American to the
canadian shore, and it will be quite an
'asy matter to cross.
The ice formation of the bridge is Gu
.icusly dissimilar on the different sides
# the river. On the American side it is
of snow ice, formed into
houlder sncnes and loOkinu