The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1879-01-23
VOL. XIV---NO. %.
NIAGARA FROZEN OVER.
A Solid Span Sixty Feet in Thickness Over
the River.

the River.
A Courier reporter was sent to the
falls yesterday, and learned that the ice
bridge became an assured fact on
Sunday last. 1t is really child of the
great snow storm of last week
which accounts for its uncommonly
early formation. For some days large
amount of SNOW covered ice from Lake
Erie has been passing over the falls,
and about the beginning OF the present
week old inhabitants began to look ex-
pectantly for an ice bridge, though it
was at least month earlier than the
usual appearance of this phenomena.
At o'clock Sunday morning the accum.
ulated mass of ice came to stand-stll
beneath the new suspension bridge, and
the watchers began to hope that there
would be bridge with smooth surface
"a thing unprecedented so far as histo.
ry or tradition bear record. But the
hope was soon dispelled, for the huge
dam Of ice suddenly began to heave, grind
and break up into fragments, with loud
noise which is described as being exceed
ingly trying to the nerves. At 10
o'clock there was second stand-still
and it seemed certain that the bridge
had been formed, but at two in the after
noun there was third and more severe
disturbance, as the imprisoned waters
exerted their giant strength in an effort
to be free.
The battle was grand one. Vast
quantities of ice and snow were caught
in the waters arms, and tossed hilher
and tIlither like playthings, fighting and
struggling with one another, and grinding
themselves to fragments in the fierce
engagement. Great hummocks, weigh
ing hundreds of tons, were pushed into the
air, and remained there as monuments
of the fearful battle. Large powders
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 of the warning
elements, though ordinarily it stands three
feet above high water. The slow; awful
strength of the infuriated waters was so
apparent that it seemed as if they must
rend the great gorge in twain and escape
from their thraldom by some new road;
but there was only one gateway open
for them, and as they could not break
the mile wide dam in two, they lifted
it up bodily and swept away beneath,
still raging, but completely conquered
by the Frost King. Having thus sue
cumbed to this inevitable humiliation
the water allowed ice to rest above it,
accepting the yoke which it could not
break despite IDS boasted strength. And
now the victor rests quietly-torn and
ragged, it is true, but invincible; and
so it will remain until the mightier
beams of the spring sun deprive it of its
strength and once more restore Niagara
to its accustomed freedom. The bridge
is nearly a mile in length, extending
from line drawn perpendicularly 10
Point Lookout, in the American Park,
half way to the railroad bridge, and fill
ing the gorge from shore to shore.
The ice mountain is still in its COM
parative infancy, but if the wind and
mercury are favorable it will soon be in
a condition to form coasting hill for the
people, as it did during the winter of
1878. The great ice bridge itself is a
counterpart in miniature of the Alpine
glacier, and fully as interesting as if ten
days of sea sickness were necessary pre-
liminary to seeing it. You have the
rough, broken surface, the hummocks
reaching ten, fifteen, twenty feet into
the air, the starting fssures, gaping,
perhaps, with depth Of thirty feet in
the solid ice, and you have the pure
snow ice itself in a million strange and
incxpicable shapes but there is an
association ofterror in this place which
does not belong to the genuine glacier,
and which may come from the mutf1ed
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 mount upward toward
the sky in q thousand contending cur
rents rs they battle to escape from their
prisoning walls. Imagine this agitated
surface suddenly becoming petriied, and
every broken wave halting just where
it was, and this will give an idea of the
ice bridge. Figures are poor make shifts
for assisting the imagination to work,
but they will perhaps assist little in
giving an idea of the magnitude of this
structure. In thickness it is probably
sixty feet, while the surface of the ice is
at least halt that distance from the water.
There are crevices twenty-five feet in
depth, and yet they show no sings Of
water. As we have said before, the sur
face of the ice bridge or lice field, for it
is really that), is exceedingly rough,
ard the work of crossing is very fa-
tiguing. Before long, however, road
will be constructed from the American
to the Canadian shore, and it will be
quite an easy matter 10 cross.
The first man who crossed the bridge
was Mr.. Tom Conroy, the well known
guide, who saved man from the rap
ids year or two ago. AS Mr.. Conroy
weighs about 200 pounds, he demonstrated
to the satisfaction of the good folks of
Niagara the entire safety Of the bridge
for purposes of locomotion. Those who
doubt its safety are at liberty to attempt
the breaking of its sixty feet of solid
ice.-Butaio Courier.
ANoTABLE WEDDING.-The marriage
of Kate A. Smith, Mrs. A. T. Stewards