52 ANIMALS CAUGHT IN QUICKSANDS. 



deep and bad quicksand the tendency almost always 

 is for the unfortunate captive to gradually sink deeper 

 and deeper, until suffocated; and the body perhaps en- 

 tirely covered by the sand or at any rate he is held pris- 

 oner, like a rat in a trap, until he dies of exhaustion. 



The tenacity of the sand in some of these places is 

 something that must be seen to be credited; indeed if 

 it once gets a fair hold, escape becomes a moral 

 impossibility, for the sand closes in upon the captive, 

 and holds him like a vice, his struggles only causing 

 him to sink in it more and more. 



Should a horse for instance get caught in one of 

 these quicksands, trying to dig it out is rarely suc- 

 cessful, for the sand runs in at least as quickly as it 

 is thrown out; the best and perhaps the only chance 

 of extricating him is to try and get poles, or whatever 

 may be at hand, passed underneath him, so as to 

 prevent his sinking deeper, and above all promptly to- 

 fasten a strong rope round the body or neck, to the 

 other end of which two or more horses are hitched r 

 and thus haul him out by main force. 



In these cases men can fortunately generally walk 

 around the unfortunate animal, without incurring any 

 serious risk provided they keep constantly shifting 

 their feet as the surface even of the most dangerous 

 quicksands is often comparatively firm. The following 

 instructive and terrible story will however show what 

 a quicksand may sometimes be found capable of doing. 

 The circumstances, we admit, are but little likely to 

 befall travellers crossing prairie streams; yet from the 

 extraordinary and we trust almost unexampled details r 

 we think the story quite worthy of recital here. In 

 the spring of 1890 a Mr. James H. Parsells was 



