PROFESSOR TYNDALL AND CAPT. WEBB’S DEATH.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 1062, 1 October 1883, Page 2

PROFESSOR TYNDALL AND CAPT. WEBB’S DEATH.

In a letter published in the Standard, Professor Tyndall says:—“The rapids proper of Niagara occur above the-fall, where,-for a mile or so, the water comes galloping and tumbling down before it takes its final leap over the edge of the. cataract. Below the cataract the river flows through a deep gorge, which has been excavated by the river. At some distance down there is a ferry between the American and Canadian sides. Lower still there is a suspension bridge for foot passengers, while about two miles below the fall the river is spanned by the railway suspension bridge. Between the ferry and this bridge the river Niagara flows unruffled, but below the suspension bridge the gorge narrows, and the rapidity and turbulence of the water increase. For a certain distance the width cannot be more than 300 ft, and here occurs what may be called ‘ the whirlpool rapids,' which are not to be confounded with the rapids above the fall. It was through the whirlpool rapids that poor Captain Webb had to steer his way. It is impossible to describe the wild fury of the waters at this place. ‘I he river boils and leaps in the moat frantic manner, the most extraordinary effect being produced when two waves so coalesce that the united forces of both toss the crest of the compounded billow, shivered into liquid spherules, high in air. In the middle of the river no man could live, and we are informed that Captain Webb avoided the middle. But the tossing everywhere is terrific. Lower down the river suddenly bends nearly at a right formed the whirlpool from which the lower rapids derive their name. - The river strikes the bank opposed to it with tremendous force, and is thereby thrown into gyratory motion. Here, it is said, Captain Webb lost his life. I do not think a powerful swimmer, with his wits about him need have come to grief in the whirlpool itself. But how any man could hare kept his senses intact amid the battering and tossing of the whirlpool rapids it is difficult to imagine, it was probably the exhaustion of his power among the rapids that rendered the mighty swimmer unable to escape from the whirlpool."