Niagara Went Dry

Congressman Lockwood of Buffalo says that within his recollection the great wa-terfall at Niágara was suspended, and that many people walked over its rocky places unshod. The New York Evangelist, in an interesting account of tMs miracle, eays it was wrought in 1848, during the month of March. To be exact it was on the morning of March 29, 1848; and for several hours the wonderful torrent did cease to flow, and the river ran dry. The preceding winter had been a severe one, and the ice which had formed in Lake Erie was of phenomenal thickness. There came on March 27 a sudden and exceedingly warm spell of weather, whioh melted the snows, and then a warm rain poured down in torrents during the entire day of the 28th of March. The ice was loosened and a strong east wind drove it far out on the lake during the night. But at sunrise on the 29th the wind carne from the west, and, as the sailors say, it was "blowing great guns." This terrific gale drove the immense mass of ice lnto the mouth of the Niágara river, where it was gorged and piled up from shore to shore, hermetically seaiing the river and damming the waters back into the lake. Thus it happened that Niágara river ran dry, lts falls became bleak, barren rocks, and its mighty thunders were put to sleep. Within four or flve hours tiny streams of water began to trickle through the gorge. The tremen-dous power back of these streams accelerated their flowing, and in a short time the ice dam gave way, and there never was such a wild, roaring, mad flood in Niágara bef ore or since; and thus the cataract became itself again.