DISASTER AT NIAGARA.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9468, 10 June 1909, Page 6

DISASTER AT NIAGARA.

New York, April 13. For'|[tlio second time since the white man- set foot in America weird [silence reigns over Niagara Rapids, which aie icebound. This extraordinary state of affairs is the result of the series of gales that last Wednesday churned the icefields of . Lake Erie, driving vast hummocks of ice down the gorge of the Niagara River and shattering the ice bridge which formed there in February. At the point where the Niagara narrowed for its inighy plunge the hummocks met a oontraryfgaie which piled up an insurmountable hairier of ice, thus completely blocking the flow of the river. The river immediately rose by leaps and bounds 40ft above its usual storm level. The Ontario Power House, which stands above the falls on the Canadian *side, is flooded. Every boathouse, wharf, and landing pier on both sides of the river has been crushed beneath the weight of the ice. The railway lines in the gorge are submerged. The damage already caused exceeds £300,000. Beneath the falls are mountains of ice jammed firmly in the river conrse, which threaten, as soon as they are released, to sweep away übe suspension bridge. The Maid of the Mist, the little steamer which plies below the falls and which la so familiar to all visitors to Niagara, lies helplessly imprisoned in this mass of ice. Thousands of visitors are httirying to the scene to admire the spectacle of a silent Niagara. “The imagination,” • telegraphs one observer, “trembles at the thought of what may happen if a fresh gale springs up and drives fresh masses of ice down the river from Labe Erie.”