FROZEN NIAGARA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 146, 17 July 1909, Page 3

FROZEN NIAGARA.

To-day engineering exports, arm?d with charges varying from 5001b to I 1 0001b of nitro-glycerine, began dvn.i- 1 miting tlie dam of ice near tlie mouth! of the Niagara river, where that stream; should flow into Lake Ontario (cabled the London Daily Telegraph's New York correspondent on 22nd April). Soldiers' from Fort Niagara entered with zestj into the operations. Explosives were placed in crevasses between the huge floes, but they appeared to have vevy / little effect. gThey blew large cavities in the dam, but the space wan almost immediately filled by the broken ice I surrounding it. The object was to; gradually start the pack moving into' the lake, and to relieve the pressure of! nearly fourteen miles of bergs wedged in all the way up to the Horse Shoe ; Falls. ; t The situation has not greatly changed i froiA yesterday. Thousands of tons°of ' ice continue to fall over the Canadian ' and American cataracts. The fact that ' s the famous, whirlpool and rapids above' 1 which Blondin crossed are now eon- I jested with huge motionless, fantastic I floes shows what an enormous quantity of ice has passed into the great gorge." i Lewiston, which is still in great dan- c ger, is situated some live miles lower : down. After the river leaves the gorge it flows for seven miles between lowhanks northwards to Lake Ontario. The danger is that, should the ice pack in 1 the open stretches near the. dam at tlie i mouth of the river make a sudden and s concerted jnovement, it would cause i V such u rush of bergs down the gorge r that everything would be swept before s it, «nd incalculable damage done. t Parts of Che river in •the gorge -.ire I normally 150 ft deep. At the present moment the floes, which in some eases f, .. . i touoh bottom, stand 00ft above the v. ? ordinary water level. The celebrated t' !;« little steamer, Maid ofHhe Mist, which o takes tourists into the spray at the foot of the Canadian falls, is still im- oi i , within two hundred yards' of v: i: ;the cataract, and will probably go down -vi the eorge with the pack when the ice decides to move. lit