[to be continued.]
[NIAGARA FALLS IN WINTER.]
In the whole world there is probably no more beautiful ice scenery than that surrounding our own Falls of Niagara during a severe winter such as the one just passed. A few weeks ago one of our artists visited Niagara in order to make sketches that might convey to the readers of Young People some idea of this wonderful scenery, and on the next page you may see the result of his labor.
Many of you have been to Niagara in summer, and know what a mass of boiling, seething foam the river is just below the Falls. Now it is all quiet, covered many feet thick with great cakes of ice that have plunged over the cataract, and become frozen into one vast solid mass which forms the famous ice bridge of which so much is written. As these great blocks of ice are of every conceivable shape, and are piled one on top of another in every imaginable position, this ice bridge is by no means an easy one to cross.
One of the most remarkable features of this Niagara winter scenery is the great ice mountain that rises grand and white in front of each fall for two-thirds of its height. These ice mountains are formed by the spray from the Falls, which freezes the instant it touches a solid body; and thus, as long as the cold weather lasts, the ice mountains are constantly growing higher and thicker.
The boys living in the village of Niagara, or who visit the Falls in winter, climb these ice mountains by means of foot-holes chopped in the ice with hatchets, and upon reaching the top, sit down and slide to the bottom.
Fig. 1.
The spray of which the ice mountains is formed, and of which the air near the Falls is filled, freezes so quickly whenever it touches anything, that while our artist was making his sketches it covered his pencil with a thick coating of ice until it looked like this (Fig. 1), and after he had held his sketch-book closed in his hand for a minute, it presented this appearance (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2.
He himself was so incased in white ice that he looked like a Santa Claus. Icicles hung from his beard, his mustache, his eyelashes, and from every point of his clothing, until he found he could only stand within reach of the spray for a few minutes at a time, or he would be weighed down and rooted to the spot by the rapidly accumulating ice.
The ice formed from the spray is not clear and glittering, but is of the purest white, like the frosting on wedding cake, only much whiter, and as it covers the branches and twigs of the trees in Prospect Park, and on the islands near the Falls, the effect is wonderfully beautiful. Glistening in the bright sunlight, these forests of ice are more like beautiful dreams of fairy-land than anything ever seen; and under the light of a full moon the scene is weird and ghostly, but beautiful beyond description.
On Luna Island, which divides the American Fall, every stone, stump, and bush has been covered with ice until it forms a grotesque figure in white. Some of these figures our artist has transferred to his paper, and named "Ice Goblins." The branches of the trees, beneath which visitors must walk, are so laden with these "Goblins" that they frequently break beneath the weight, and great pieces of ice rattle down about one's ears in the most unpleasant manner.
ICE GOBLINS AND WINTER SCENERY AT NIAGARA.—Drawn by W. H. Gibson.—[See Page 279.]
AN OTTER AND HER YOUNG.