Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-11-10
The Rapids Of Niagara.

| ION, a distance OI seven 1ullc6s q u0-
scent of the river is 1O4 feet. The five
miles of it commencing at the railway
suspension bridge is q roaring, seething
torrent, of which the first INLET is
rather less-between the bridge and the
whirlpool, is the very worst part. Cap
tain Webb was frank enough to say that
It was the "angriest bit of water I have
scen." 1t looks angry enough, impas-
sable enough, to the living whenviewed
from the bridge, but it must be exam
ined from the waters edge to obtain
any adequate idea of its night. About
sixty rods below the bridge are two elc-
vators, one on each side of the river.
That on the Canada side brings you
nearest the water, and is the better for
our purpose. 1t is unnecessary to go
into any detailed description of that
which can never be adequately de-
scribed. Let us simply say that here
are the waters of all the great lakes but
Ontario, choked into a channel four
hundred feet wide, struggling and rush
ing to escape with a descent of twenty
five feet to the mile. Waters are piled
in wild turmoil upon waters as they
dash onward, with a depth of near a
hundred feet, and a velocity of twenty
seven miles per hour, carrying into the
whirlpool in the same time over 1OO,-
600, 900 tons of water. My figures are
from the United States survey, and are
as neal absolute correctness aslt is pos
sible to make them. The laboring of
this mighty mass to find an outlet is
seen in the piling up of the waters in
midstream to the height q at least
thirty feet above the shores. Some en-
thusiasts put it as high as sixty feet, but
after a careful measurement with the
eye thirty feet satisfies me. The notion
that there are rocks near The surface in
the middle of this channel is absurd;
the depth that there must be to carry
off this accumulation of water at all for
bids it, and had there been rocks there
the Maid of the Mist would have been
splintered to atoms upon them on her
voyage down in June, 1861. 1t is my
conviction, after a long end careful sur
vey of these rapids, that the man who
ventured into them would be certain to
have the breath buffeted out of his body
before he could reach thu whirlpool, and
lsuspect that DR.. G. N. Palmer was not
far from the truth when he testified be-
fore the Coroner's jury that Webb was
stunned and shocked to death, if 1 may
so phrase it, by what he styled ''the re-
dictionary force of the water" He might
easily have been carried against rocks
lower down the river, but the business
was done for him here, as it will be for
any mar foolish enough to emulate his
attempt.
Yet it is gravely stated by one or two
'eye-witnesses, that after the worst Of
these rapids was passed, and near the
entrance of the whirlpool Webb was
seen to raise his head, look toward the
Canadian shore and dive, which was the
last seen of him. This is simply-bosh
AS the body of this unfortunate man wa
whirled through these rapids, carried W
and down and dashed hither and thither,
it was utterly impossible for the excited
.on-lookers to tell, in the brief and i'm.
perfect glimpses they had of him,
whether he was alive or dead, whether
he raised his head Or a great billow
threw it up, whether he dived Or wa
borne under by the current. There is
no certainty of anything in any of these
statements, except that the body Of a
man was seen to be hurled down
through these rapids. The nature Of
the place and the conditions of the view
forbid anything like certainty.
But supposing, what l assume never
will happen, that the body of M. Hilaric
Balsan, or some other water-crank, be
discharged from the rapids into the
whirlpool with some breath in it, what
then? Lot us ascendSthis elevator and
go down the river three-quarters of a
mile, and see for ourselves. A great
bend in the road occurs just before we
reach it, corresponding to the indenta-
ton in the bank which is the basin OF
the whirlpool. 1 will use a few more
figures from the United States survey,
which will help us to realize the savage
grandeur and immensely of this place.
First, let us say that this torrent, rush
ing down to the northwest, has scooped
out a deep, wide basin from the Canada
side, as nearly semi-circular in shape as
it could be made. When the waters
finally escape from this confinement
they rush out sharp to the northeast.
The basin of the whirlpool is a pit sur
rounded by almost perpendicular banks
325 feet high, thickly clothed with
pines and cedars. The width Of the in
let is 400 feet; of the outlet, which is
the narrowest point on the river, 300
feet; distance straight across the basin,
from bank to bank, on the Canada side,
1896 feet. the same from shore to shore,
at the waters edge, 1,1OO feet; depth of
water in the whirlpool, 400 feet; area,
Is acres.
Those persons who declare that there
is no whirlpool, but merely a success
sion of small eddies, can not have used
their eyes. The torrent comes in with
the same mighty rush and uproar that
has characterized it on it's course from
the Suspension bridge down, shoots
perhaps three-quarters of the way across
the chasm, takes a swirl in to the left,
and comes straight back, with dimin.
ished force, it is true, but still with $
powerful current, and again falls into
the main torrent. The other third o.
the basin, toward the shore, looks com
paratively calm, but it is in fact agi
tated by ceaseless suctions and under.
currents, and from this side the grea,
volume of 1.-THE water escapes down the
stream.
None of the swimmers, pseudo swim.
morS onI h;ob 1.-Two M ,,h0 hove r::AoJ