NIAGARA FALLS DRY FOR A DAY.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 25, 29 June 1874, Page 3

NIAGARA FALLS DRY FOR A DAY.

The winter of 1848 had been intensely cold, and the ice formed on Lake Erie was very thick. This was loosened around tha shores by the warm days of early spring. During the day a stiff easterly wind moved the whole ice-field up the lake. About |sunset the wind chopped suddenly round, and blew a gale from the west. This brought the vast track of ice down again with such tremendous force that it filled the neck of the lake, and the outlet, so that the overflow of water was very greatly impeded. Of course it only needed a very short space of time for the falls to drain off the water below Black Rock. The consequence wag that, when the writer rose in the morning at Niagara, he found that the river was nearly half gone. The American channel had dwindled to a respectable creek. The British channel looked as if it had been smitten with a quick consumption and was fast passing away. Far out into the Canadian rapids, the water was gone ; the rocks were bare, black, and forbidding. The roar of Niagara had subsided almost to a moan. All the people of the neighbourhood were abroad exploring recesses and cavities that had never before been exposed to mortal eyes. The writer went some distance up the shore of the river. Large fields at the muddy bottom lay bare; The singular syncope of the waters lasted all the day, and night closed over the strange scene. But in the morning the river was restored in all its strength, beauty and majesty, and the writer was glad to welcome its swelling tide once more.