Year: 1879

FROM tle buHaAo courier, january "a.


A Courier reporter was sent to the Falls yester-
day. and learned that the ice bridge became an
assured fact Sunday last. II is really u child of
the great snow-stOrm of last week, which accounts
for its uncommonly early formation. For some days
a large amount of snow-eovered ice from Lake Erie
has been passing tbs Falls and about the begin
ming of the present week old Inhabitants began to
look expectantly for ice bridge, though it was at
least month earlier than the usual appearance of
this phenomenon. At eight O'Clock Sunday morning
the accumulated of ice came to a standstill
beneath the suspension bridge and the watchers
began to hope that there would be bridge with
smooth surface-a thing unprecedented far his
tory or tradition bears record. But the hope was
dispelled, for the huge dam of ice suddenly be-
gan to heave, grind and break up into fragments,
with loud noise whichi is described being ex-
ceedingy trying to the nerves. At ten O'Clock there
second standstill. and it seemed certain that
the bridge had been formed but at two in the after
there q third and more severe disturbance.
the imprisoned waters exerted their giant strength
in effort TO be free.


The battle grand one. Vast quantities of
ice and caught in the waters arms, and
tossed hither and thither like paythings, fighting
and struggling with another, and grinding them
selves to fragments in the fierce engagement. Great
hummocks. weighing hundreds of tons, were pushed
into the air. and remained there as monuments of
the fearful battle. Large powders were torn from
the shore and swept into the stream and the solitary
fir which was wont TO mark the landing place of the
Terry, became a victim 10 the warning elements
though ordinarily IL stands three feet above high
water. The slow, awful strength of the infurated
waters apparent that 1t seemed if they
must reni the great gorge in twain and escape from
their thralldOm by some new road but there
only one gateway open to them, and as they could
not break the mile 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 above
| L. "a l.


spite its boasted strength. And now the victor rests
quiety-tOrn and ragged. it is true. but nvincibe
and it will remain until the mightier beams of the
Spring deprive it of its strength. and more
restore Niagara to its accustomed freedom. The
bridge is nearly mile in length, extending from a
line drawn perpendcularly to Point Lookout. in the
American Park, half way to the railroad bridge and
| filling the gorge from shore to shore. -'l g.
The ice mountain is still in its comparative in
fancy, but if the wind and mercury favorable it
will soon be in a condition to form coastng hill
for the people it did during the Winter of 1875.
The great ice bridge itself is counterfeit in mna-
ture of Alpine glacier, and fully interesting
if ten days of sea-sckness were necessary preim-
inary to seeing it. You have the rough, broken
/ face, the hummOcks Ieaehing ten, fifteen, twenty
feet into the air, the Startling assures gaping, per-
haps, with depth of thirty feet in the solid ice
aud you have the pure suOw-ice itself in million
strange and inexplicable shapes; but there is an
association of terror in this place which does not be
| long to the genuine glacier and which may come
| from the mufied Of the waterfall perchance
the thought of 200 feet of water seethng and boiling
beneath your feet. Many of our readers have stood
the bank beside the Whirlpool rapids and seen the
| wrathfu waters mount upwarn toward the sky in a
thousand contending currents as they battle to es-
| cape from their prison walls Imagine this agi-
tated surface suddenly becoming petrfed, and
broken wave hating just where it was, and this will
| give an idea of the ice bridge. Figures poor
makeshifts for assisting the imagination to work,
but they will perhaps assist little in giving ides
of the magnitude Of this structure. In thickness i
is probably about sixty feet while the surface of the
ice is at least half that distance from the surface
| the water. There are crevces twenty-five or thirty
feet in depth, and yet they show signs of water
As have said before, the surface of the ice bridg
Tor ice field, for it is really that) is exceedingly
rough, and the work of crossing is very fatiguing
Before long, hawever, road will be constructed
from the American to the Canadian shore, and it vii
be quite easy matter to cross.


The first man who erased the bridge was Mr.. Ton
COnroy, the well-known guide who saved a mar
from the rapids year or two ago. As Mr.. Conroy
weighs about 200 pounds, he demonstrated to th
satisfaction of the good folks of Niagara the entir
safety of the bridge for purposes of ocOmotiOn Thos
who doubt its safety at liberty to attempt tn
breaking of its sixty feet of solid ice. 30