St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-01-09
A Gorge Containing Three
Million Tons Goes Out at
Cincinnati.
The Mammoth Glacier Does
Tremendous Damage to
Boats in the River.
Over a Hundred Barges and
Contents, Valued at $780,
600, Destroyed.
Thousands Of Tons Of Coal
Sent to the Bottom OF
the Ohio.

CINCINNATI, Jan. 8.-The ice gorge
in the Ohio river broke tonight and
forty-fve loaded coal barges, worth
with their cargoes s1SO,OOO, sixty empty
barges worth $4,000, aud one tow boat
valued at $4,000, are wiped out of ex-
istence. The gorge began to move at
o'clock this afternoon. Repeated cracks
in the ice, each as loud as a musket
shot, gave warning of the impending
danger, and river men, who had been
on guard night and day since the form
ing of the gorge, were given warning of
the impending danger. Twelve of the
large river packets and a number of
tow boats were fully exposed to the
weight of the sea of ice which came
grinding down the river at the rate of
six miles an hour, but all were saved
with the exception of the tow boat
Mattheson. 1t was a narrow escape for
some of the packets, and some of their
chains were parted, but prompt action
on the part of their crews made good
the damage, and all of them save the
Mattheson escaped with the loss of
nothing but the paint upon their hulls.
There Was No Salvation
for the coal barges, however, and their
owners watched them turned into the
ice pockets, and could do nothing to
save them. There was not cent of in
surance on any of the property de-
stroyed. The bridges were shaken, but
escaped without material injury. At 9
o'clock tonight the ice was still floating
down the river, but the danger to
bridges and boats in this vicinity is
over. 1t requires stretch of the imag-
nation to picture 100000 tons of ice
moving at five miles an hour down the
Ohio river. The ice in forming a gorge
in the river does not lie fiat. Gorges are
formed of appended fragments of ice in
clining forward and downward in the
direction of the current. In this way a
gorge may be four to six feet thick. Its
upper surface is craggy and jagged.
Water rising in the interstices freezes.
L IlC tudSS bluS OtCOllGS OF less
solid. Its nip on the banks of the river,
assisted by curYing banks. hold it sta
tiouary. The current of rising stream,
especially at the present stage of the
river (EWenty feet and rising is con-
slant force tending to tear the gorge
loose. Floating ice accommodating at
t he upper ends affords another power
to tear the gorge from the banks. a
rising temperature, which today was
from 20 to 30, is powerful auxiliary to
these forces already mentioned. At 2
O'Clock this afternoon this mighty
glacier of 100000 tons began to move
With a Horrible GrOan.
and the hills re-echoed with the terrific
screaming of score of steam whistles.
Slowly. as if with great difficulty, the
mighty mass began to move, at first
fracturlng its ice body with intOnatiOns
like the sound of musketry. Crunching
and grinding the shores, crashing
against the great stone piers of the five
monster bridges, on it went with force
no mortal power could resist, and in
creasing its speed every minute. Nine
teen steamers and hundred coal
barges. empty or loaded. had but two
or three inches of oak plank to
present resistance to this ponder
Gus aggregation of power. Every man
was at his post on the steamers.
and every man was a hero. Again
and again the ponderous chains that
held the steamers and the wharf boats
to their mOorings were parted, and as
often skiilfuI hands repaired them. The
two bridges above the public landing
broke the ice somewhat, and prevented
the otherwise inevitable destruction of
every packet. The gorge that moved
past Cincinnati extended from Coney
Island, above the mouth of the Little
Miami, to below Persons ferry, dis
lance of nearly eighteen miles. For
two miles below this the water was
clear and open. Then came another
gorge, beginning at the mouth of the
Great Miami and extending below
Lawrenceburg. This lower gorge was
about five miles long. The upper gorge,
with its doomed coal fleets, crashed into
it, and tore it out, and now both are
grinding their way with a terrific roar
ing far down the Ohio, at five or six
miles an hour.