Niagara Falls 

 1900 Once it is in the grasp of the river, the current hurries it on 



Dunlap 



toward the falls with rapid pace. On the occasions of large 

 floes the ice gathers in considerable quantities on the reefs and 

 bars above the falls, in many cases diverting the direction of the 

 current, and making it possible to cross on the ice to points seldom 

 reached. 



The most wonderful incident of this kind on record occurred 

 on March 29, 1848. The winter had been very cold, and the 

 ice in Lake Erie was exceedingly thick. The warm days of 

 approaching spring weakened it, and during the day a heavy 

 wind started the ice-field in motion. It was swept into the river 

 entrance in such immense quantities that it filled the outlet of the 

 lake to such an extent that the flow of the water was impeded. 

 In the morning the people at Niagara Falls found their river was 

 half gone. Only a creeklike stream flowed through the American 

 channel, and the water in the Canadian, or deeper, channel had 

 also dwindled away, so far as water was concerned. The rocky 

 bed of the river was bare. Niagara's roar was gone. During 

 the day the ice-dam at the river's entrance near Buffalo gave way, 

 and the torrent again plunged over Niagara. 



The ice as it leaves Lake Erie sweeps down the river in a 

 mass that whitens the river from shore to shore, making a spectacle 

 well worth watching from the trains of the several railways 

 running between Buffalo and the falls along the river-bank. 

 The trip of the ice through the upper rapids and over the falls 

 breaks the mass into small, uneven pieces, few of which, strange 

 as it may seem, are as large as a peck measure. And stranger 

 still it is that these small pieces of ice find it possible to jam on 

 such a current as that of the Niagara River below the falls and 

 form an ice-bridge of such remarkable strength as some of these 

 structures prove to possess. No feature is so interesting as the 

 formation of a Niagara ice-bridge. Hour after hour the ice 

 tumbles over the American and the Horseshoe Falls. Gradually 

 the eddies in the lower river become filled, and the ice in them 

 extends out to the main current. When this stage of forma- 



406 



