Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-01-13
Misttllaneous.
THE ICE BRIDGE Ar yIAGAkA.
SOLID SPAN SIXTY FEET IN THICKNESS.


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 un-
commonly early formation. For some
days a large amount of snow-covered ice
from Lake Erie has been passing over the
Falls, and about the beginning Of the pres
ent week old inhabitants began to look ex-
pectantly for an ice-bridge, though it was
at least month earlier than the usual ap-
pearance of the phenomenon. At 8 O'Clock
Sunday morning the accumulated mass of
ice came to stand-still beneath the new
suspension bridge and the watchers began
to hope that there would be a bridge with
smooth surface--a thing unprecedented
so far as history 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
exceedingly 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 in the afternoon there was
a third and more severe disturbance, as
the imprisoned waters exerted their giant
strength i'm an effort to be free.
The battle was grand one. Vast
quantities of ice and snow were caught in
the waters arms and tossed hither and
thither like playthings, fighting and strug-
Cling with one another, and grinding
themselves to fragments in the fierce en-
gagement. 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 Il
victim to 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 armies of the Frost King.
Having thus succumbed to this inevitable
humiliation, the water allowed the ice to
rest above it, accepting the yoke which it
could not break despite its boasted strength.
And now the victor rests quietly-tOrn and
ragged, it is true, but invincble 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 ac-
customed freedom. The bridge is nearly
a mile in length, extending from a 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 ice mountain is still in its compare
tive infancy, but if the wind and mercury
are favorable it will soon be in acondition
to form coasting hill for the people as it
did during the winter of 1875. The great
ice-bridge itself is a counterpart in minia-
ture of an Alpine glacier, and fully as in
teresting as if ten days of seasickness were
a necessary preliminary to seeing it. You
have the rough, broken surface, the hum
mocks reaching 10, Is, 20 feet into the air,
the startling fissures gaping, perhaps, with
depth of 30 feet in the solid ice and you
have the pure snow ice itself in q million
strange and inexplicable shapes but there
is an association of terror in this place
which does not belong to the genuine gla-
cier, and which may come from the muf-
fled 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 a
thousand contending currents as they bat
tie to escape from their prisoning walls.
Imagine this agitated surface suddenly be-
coming petrified, and every broken wave
halting just where il was, and this will
give an idea of the ice bridge. Figures
are poor makeshifts for assisting the imag-
ination to work, but they will perhaps as
sist a little in giving an idea of the mag
nitude of this structure. In thickness it is
probably about GO feet, while the surface
of the ice is at least half that distance from
the surface of the water. There are crew
ices 25 or 80 feet in depth. and yet they
show no signs of water. As we have said
before, the surface of the ice-bridge (or
ice-field, for it is really that,) is exceed
ingly rough, and the work of crossing is
very fatiguing. Before long, however,
road will be constructed from the Ameri-
can to the Canadian shore, and it will be
quite an easy matter to cross. s3
The first man who crossed the bridge
was Mr.. Tom Conroy, the well-known
guide who saved man from the rapids
year or two ago. As Mr.. Conroy weighs
200 pounds, he demonstrated to the salts
faction 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 60 feet Of solid ice.-Btfalo Courier,