THE STRAND MAGAZINE. 
418 
snow was only brought 
about in a very small 
degree by the rainfall ; the 
south wind carried with it 
an immense quantity of 
water in an invisible form 
which, on striking the 
snow, was condensed into 
the visible form, and there- 
fore, the steaming appear- 
ance. It is a fact that 
one pound of water pass- 
ing from the invisible to 
the visible form gives off 
very nearly one thousand 
heat units, or sufficient to 
melt about six and a half 
pounds of ice or five 
pounds of cast iron. 
The next morning, while 
I was dressing, I became 
aware that the river was 
up. Dressing as quickly 
as possible, I went down 
to the Covered Bridge.” 
This bridge was one of the 
ordinary type, and con- 
sisted of two immensely 
strong wooden girders, a 
lattice-work of heavy tim- 
bers about fifteen feet deep. 
Each _ end rested on a 
stone pier, and the whole 
was covered with a roof 
to preserve the wood. 
There were rapids above 
the bridge and a cascade 
“‘something in white and blue iioops, blue sleeves, and 
below it. 
1 crossed over, and while T was looking at 
the immense mass of ice coming down the 
rapids a very large block struck the pier 
over which I was standing, and a considerable 
part of it was demolished. The thought 
occurred to me that if the bridge were 
destroyed it would be very difficult for me 
to return home, so I made a quick dash for 
the other side, and while crossing T heard the 
timbers of the bridge creak. 
On reaching the other end of the bridge T 
turned and looked back, and at that very 
instant the opposite end fell into the raging 
torrent, and inside of a few seconds the whole 
of building up and standardizing the filaments 
of incandescent electrical lamps by electrically 
heating them in a highly-attenuated atmo- 
sphere of hydro-carbon vapours— the inven- 
tion that made incandescent lighting pos- 
sible. At a still later date someone would 
have stumbled upon the invention of an 
automatic gun, and made a smokeless 
powder by mixing nitro-glycerine with true 
gun-cotton. 
1 visited Vesuvius when there were three 
thousand tons of lava pouring down every 
hour in the direction of Pompeii, and while 
standing over this stream of lava the mountain 
went over the cataract. Curiously enough, 
hardly a particle of it could be seen ; only 
occasionally a bit of broken timber sticking 
out of the mass of rushing ice and water. 
It was a narrow squeak. Had I been two 
or three seconds later, it would have fallen 
to otliers at a later date to discover the process 
sneezed and nearly blew me off ray feet. I 
have also witnessed a great storm on the 
Atlantic, but neither of these made so much 
impression upon me as the destruction of the 
big wooden bridge at Abbott, Maine, and my 
miraculous escape. However, I was young 
and impressionable then. 
