208 A RIVER VIEW. 



in the still winter nights seated by his fireside, or else 

 when snugly wrapped in his own bed. 



One winter the river shut up in a single night, be- 

 neath a cold wave of great severity and extent. Zero 

 weather continued nearly a week, with a clear sky and 

 calm, motionless air ; and the effect of the brilliant 

 sun by day and of the naked skies by night upon this 

 vast area of new black ice, one expanding it, the other 

 contracting, was very marked. 



A cannonade indeed ! As the morning advanced, 

 out of the sunshine came peal upon peal of soft mimic 

 thunder ; occasionally becoming a regular crash, as if 

 all the ice batteries were discharged at once. As 

 noon approached, the sound grew to one continuous 

 mellow roar, which lessened and became more inter- 

 mittent as the day waned, until about sundown it was 

 nearly hushed. Then as the chill of night came on, 

 the conditions were reversed and the ice began to 

 thunder under the effects of contraction ; cracks 

 opened from shore to shore, and grew to be two or 

 three inches broad under the shrinkage of the ice. 

 On the morrow the expansion of the ice often found 

 vent in one of these cracks ; the two edges would first 

 crush together, and then gradually overlap each other 

 for two feet or more. 



This expansive force of the sun upon the ice is 

 sometimes enormous. I have seen the ice explode 

 with a loud noise and a great commotion in the water, 

 and a huge crack shoot like a thunderbolt from shore 

 to shore, with its edges overlapping a/id shivered into 

 fragments. 



