194 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



illusion of something singularly light and intan- 

 gible. In fact, an ice-boat is a sort of disembodied 

 yacht; it is a sail on skates. The only semblance 

 to a boat is the sail and the rudder. The platform 

 under which the skates or runners three in num- 

 ber are rigged is broad and low; upon this the 

 pleasure-seekers, wrapped in their furs or blankets, 

 lie at full length, and, looking under the sail, skim 

 the frozen surface with their eyes. The speed 

 attained is sometimes very great, more than a 

 mile per minute, and sufficient to carry them ahead 

 of the fastest express train. When going at this 

 rate the boat will leap like a greyhound, and thrill- 

 ing stories are told of the fearful crevasses, or open 

 places in the ice, that are cleared at a bound. And 

 yet withal she can be brought up to the wind so 

 suddenly as to shoot the unwary occupants off, and 

 send them skating on their noses some yards. 



Navigation on the Hudson stops about the last 

 of November. There is usually more or less float- 

 ing ice by that time, and the river may close very 

 abruptly. Beside that, new ice an inch or two 

 thick is the most dangerous of all; it will cut 

 through a vessel's hull like a knife. In 1875 there 

 was a sudden fall of the mercury the 28th of No- 

 vember. The hard and merciless cold came down 

 upon the naked earth with great intensity. On the 

 29th the ground was a rock, and, after the sun went 

 down, the sky all around the horizon looked like 

 a wall of chilled iron. The river was quickly cov- 

 ered with great floating fields of smooth, thin ice. 



