Bl 



ume 



Niagara Falls 



1856 and a half miles long. But neither the British government, nor 

 Mut the United States, or either of the states, has ratified or confirmed 



the gift; although Jesse Ware, claiming under Stedman, has, 

 for a number of years in succession, assailed our legislative halls 

 for the land, or some remuneration therefor. Nor does it appear 

 that even the Indians themselves, after the excitement produced 

 by the transaction had subsided, recognized any validity in Sted- 

 man's title ; for the next year, 1 764, they ceded the same tract, 

 together with other lands, extending north to Lake Ontario, to 

 the king of Great Britain, for a carrying-place around the Falls 

 of Niagara. 



1859 



BLUME, Justice Jarvis. Across Niagara on a man's back. No 

 publisher. N. D. 



A pamphlet of sixteen pages describing Blondin's tight-rope passages 

 across the Niagara as related to the author by Harry Colcord, the man 

 whom Blondin carried across on his back. 



But the horrors of the journey are best related by the man 

 who sat on Blondin's back and participated in them — Harry 

 Colcord. 



Blondin was not quite confident of the success of the under- 

 taking himself. He had been across a few times, but without 

 me on his back, and he did not know what effect the additional 

 weight might have on the rope. His earnest advice to me before 

 starting was: 



" Harry, be sure and let yourself rest all the time like a dead 

 weight on my back. If I should sway or stumble, on no account 

 attempt to balance yourself." 



I determined to follow his advice. My first thrill occurred 

 as we started; over the pine trees, whose sharp tops bristled far 

 below us between the cliffs and the river, it seemed far more ter- 

 rifying than out over the water. My heart was in my mouth as 

 we began to descend the rope, which from its weight had a 

 depression of fifty feet in the center; but it was a matter of life 

 or death, and I resolved to follow Blondin's advice most 



386 



