Year: 1879

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 RIVER JUST BELOW THE CATARACT.

 A WINTER SCENE vIvID1Y DESCRIBED.

 A Buffalo paper thus describes winter scene at Niagara Falls:-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 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 thralldom by some new road; but there was only one gateway for them, and, as they could not break the mile wide dam in two, they lifted it up bodily and swept away beneath. Having thus succumbed, the water allowel the ice to rest above it, accepting tie yoke which it could not break, spite it's boasted strength. And now the victor rests quietly, torn and ragged it is true, but invincible and so it will remain until the beams of the spring sun de- prive it of it's strength, and once more restore Niagara to its accustomed freedom. The bridge is nearly mile in length, extending from 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 first view of the Falls brings the heart up into the mouth with 8 shock that is almost painful in it's suddenness and force. Everything is so changed, so transfgured. Ice everywhere Ice upon the rocks, upon the trees, en- croaching upon the cataract itself and deadening it's roar, even stealing away large portion of it's power, to all seeming. AS the spectator stands upon this point the wind blows the spray into his face, and soon covers him all over with jewels, but what cares he for the spray in the enthusiasm of the glorious view In the park the ice has been as destructive as it is beautiful, and though it has robed the trees and buildings in snowy beauty, it has torn down huge limbs by it's overpowering weight. Looking over to the Canadian shore, the observer can see huge icicles of many tons weight hanging like the ropy locks on the foreheads of giants in the story books. But these sights are nothing when compared to the broad sheet of wrinkled snow-ics which lies at his feet. There it is-the conqueror of Niagara-sparkling in the sunlight calmly and peacefully. |.

 Beside the rotunda which stands at the base of the American fall mountain of snowy spray ice towers up eighty feet high, and is each day climbing higher and higher toward the summit. The dome of the rotunda bears an ice crown of exceeding beauty and along the roof of the dressing shed are curious ice formations which nothing less than photographic camera can adequately picture. Giant icicles hang from the cliffs and every once in while huge fragment comes tumbling down. The ice is perfectly white and seemingly quite porous, but excessively hard frozen. Its appearance is exactly that of spun glass. It is said that the spray which formed this ice was perfectly pure, and that if ton of it were melted it would produce no appreciable quantity of sediment. The ice mountain is still in comparative infancy, but if the wind and the mercury are favorable it will soon be in condition to form coast ing hill for the people as it did during the winter of 1875.

 The great ice bridge itself is counter. part in miniature of an Alpine glacier. You have the rough, broken surface the hummocks reaching ten, fifteen twenty feet into the air, the startling Assures gaping perhaps with depth oi thirty feet in the solid ice; and you have the pure snow ice itself in million strange and inexplicable shapes but there is an ass ociation of terror in thiE place which does not belong to the genuine glacier, and which may come from the untitled roar of the waterfall perchance the thought of 200 feet O.

 water seething and boiling beneath you feet. Many of our readers have stood on the bank beside the whirlpool rapids and seen the wrathful waters mound upward toward the sky in thousand contending currents as they battle tt

 escape from their prisoning walls

 Imagine this agitated surface suddenl,

 becoming petrifed, and every broker

 wave halting just where it was, and thi

 will give an idea of the magnitude o

 this structure. In thickness it i

 probably about sixty feet, while th'

 surface of the ice is at least half tha

 distance from the surface of the water

 There are creyasses twenty-five or thirt,

 feet in depth, and yet they show n'

 signs of water. As we have said before

 the surface of the ice bridge Cor ice field

 for it is really that) is exceedingly rough

 and the work of crossing is fatiguing

 Before long, however, @ road will b constructed from the American to th } Canadian shore, and it will be quite al ] easy matter to cross.

 The ice formation of the bridge !: curiously dissimilar on the different side of the river. On the American side it } composed of snow ice, formed int rounded boulder shapes, and lookin ) exactly like white coral. As you nea

 the centre of the river, the ice frae 1 ,,ao,,4s ot,.o1r larorar and urhar, 1ro,1 ,ooo