The true Democrat. [volume] (Bayou Sara [La.]) 1892-1928, 1898-06-25
AN APPALLING SILENCE
WHEN NIAGARA FALLS RAN DRY JUST
FIFTY YEARS AGO.

flushed, the Snarling Rapids Ceased to
Roar,th Great Precipice Was Bare from
Shore to Shore, and People Wondered.
Eat 5 o'clock on the morning of
March 81, lS48, just fifty years ago"
said an old resident of western New
York, II awoke with sense of some
thing exceedingly strange expressing
me. I was born twenty-five years be-
fore with the roar OF Niagara Falls in
my ears, and had lived ever since then
within mile of the laundering cata-
ract. When I awoke that morning
oppressed by that strange feeling, it
was some time before I discovered
that it was caused by the unmistaka-
BILE and astounding fact that the rum
bic and roar Of Niagara was gone.
"When l realized this, my first
thought was that l had become deaf
during the night, but the ticking of O
clock that I heard distinctly in an adj
joining room proved that my hearing
was all right. The tumult of Niagara
was stilled, nevertheless, and the un-
wonted silence was something appall-
ing. Certain that some unheard- of
!, catastrophe must be impending, I
sprang out of bed, dressed hurriedly,
and ran from the house. Early as it
was, I found scores Of people had
been awakened as I had been, and
were hurrying pell NELL toward the
falls to learr what was the cause of
the alarming quietude. 1t was soon
learned, and sight was witnessed at
the Falls Of Niagara, such as had
never been seen before, at least by
people then ON earth, and it is not
within the bounds Of probability that
such sight will ever be witnessed
again. Where had been the river that
for untold ages had rushed impetuous-
ly on to form that stupendous cataract
there was but naked bed of jagged,
black and Shiny rocks, and the preci-
pice over which it had hurled its
mighty volume of laundering and rag
ing waters for all those ages was bare
from shore to shore! Niagara was dry,
or so nearly SO, that the water that
struggled over the great wall of rock
was as but the tinkle of a mountain
brook where the roar Of that awful
cataract had been.
The American channel of the river
had dwindled to the dimensions Of a
creek that one might easily step over
and the water that still ran in The
British channel resembled some in.
land river affected by severe August
drought. Goat Island was as big as
two Goat Islands, as the water had
shrunk from every side of it, leaving
q wide expanse OF ragged, savage
looking rocks, which no eye, so far,as
the record was, had ever seen before.
The bed of the Canadian rapids, far
out into the stream, was dry, as was
the space between the lower end of
Cost Island, and out beyond the
tower, that well-remembered old land
mark, long since gone.
1.-The rocks thus exposed were
black and forbidding, giving the dry
river bed the appearance of tract Of
timber through which fire had swept,
leaving only a myriad of charred
stumps standing. The Three Sisters
looked forlorn in their enhanced d.
mansions. The great jet of water
which had from time out of mind
leaped into the air from the snarling
rapids south Of these islands, aud is
leaping there today, was not leaping
that morning, and there was not
enough left Of the rapids to snarl.
people from the Canada side
walked along the edge Of the preci-
pice, where only the. day before
thousand-ton wall could not have sus-
tanned itself against the rush of wa
ters, and made their way easily to
Goat Island Oh the American side
without wetting their feet. The water
in the river below the falls had of
course shrunk in proportion, being no
longer fed from above, revealing an
array of irregular, pinacled rocks, that
gave spectators for the first time an
idea of the hidden perils, many of
them had braved scores of times as
on the little Maid of the
mist, The famous little vessel that dai-
~ forced its way through those waters,
over those threatening rocks, to the
foot of she falls. The entire scene
was at once desolate, strange and aw-
[ul to contemplate. Ignorant of the
cause Of this incredible phenomenon,
The people were filled with alarm aud
apprehension as to its meaning. Never
;heless, they could not refrain from
warming over the dry bed of the
liver, and about the great barred
'recipice itself, exploring caves, dark
'ecesses, curious formations in the
'ocks, aud other remarkable features :
VI the cataract and rapids, the exist +,
'nce of which they had never dreamed {
#, and which nc, mortal eye had per- |
laps ever gazed upon before. Anum-
yer Of ancient gunbarrels were found |
,mOnp the rocks of tho r;row 1o1