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.]