90 Reminiscences of 



cannon in the distance, and large ridges of ice will be 

 thrown up under pressure across the whole lake, across 

 which you will have to cut away a passage to get a 

 team through, and large masses of ice will be thrown 

 on the surrounding level as if out-thrown by powder 

 below. 



The pressure of expanding ice is immense, equal to 

 several thousand pounds to the square inch, and if you 

 fill with water an iron ball with a shell two inches 

 thick and plug it up and expose it to extreme cold, it 

 will easily crack open. Therefore the pressure of thick 

 ice in a lake will at times expand with such force as to 

 throw out the shore ice on land in the twinkling of the 

 eye, making a wall difficult to get over. I once saw 

 while on the lake a shore ice wall commence a mile 

 above me, where it got a start, and go two miles below 

 in a few seconds, with a roar beyond that of half a 

 dozen railroad trains. 



When the lake was artificially raised some years 

 ago, for impounding more water for the Androscoggin 

 River and the mills below at Lewiston, an island not 

 very far from my camp, of an area of a few acres, was 

 flooded and frozen over in the following winter. This 

 island had quite a growth of pine and cedars on it. 

 One of my men was near when a strong movement of 

 the ice occurred, and saw the crushing and toppling of 

 the timbers as they were carried along by the moving 

 ice all out of place, as shown the following spring. 



THERE are great extremes of cold at the lakes from 

 their altitude of 1500 feet above the sea, and the 

 winter snows fall more heavily there than perhaps at 

 any other locality in the country. The ice commences 



