SHOOTING NIAGARA RAPIDS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 7167, 10 September 1886, Page 4

SHOOTING NIAGARA RAPIDS.

- A M\N named Carlisle D. Graham, a cooper, o£ British birth, resolved on ihe day he heard'oE Captain -Webb's death ■ to nttompt to pass through the rapids of Niagara River. Ho BUodeeded in his raeh

enterprise on July 12.. The only precedent is the escape of Iho steamßr Maid of the

Mist from the Sheriffi'a pursuit in 1861, thy shooting the Rapids below the Falls.

Giabani built a barrel seven feet high, the

bottom having a diameter of seventeen inches, and tha top ■a diameter of twentythree inches. Two feet below the top the diameter was thirty-three inches. The staves composing the barrel were of oak, two and a-haif inches thick, and they were bound together by twenty-four iron hoopß. This curious vessel wag so ballasted that it wouM swim upright; it hiid n manhole in the top, aud a gaok inside, for tbe body, whs stayed with abort ropes so aB to prevent the body brinj;.. struck .violently atainst th- sides at the barrel Armholes permitted tho uiaa'inßide to grasp the handles of plugs 00 arranged at -to admit air after the first supply *• had- been exhausted. • • Several thousand perfiona assembled to wit- • ne^s'the feat, which was almost prevented by- Graham's arrest, ile was, howeVor, re1 " Ittaeed becnuse there w'aa ! no legal reae|on - • for ' defaming -"him. V lie atarted x from " below the l^alPs at' 3,53 Jpiro., paHried 'tho v Whirlpool at -four- /o'clock, and reached Churs'ton, a town on' the east bank of the riVer and the limit of steamboat navign-

tion for .Lake Ontorio r at 4.25. ■ Tho couf so of the barrel was very erratio, es may bo imagined. ' After was-Bubmorged i^ \yajs scarcely ever upfiglit, and w^« dashed about with' troinennous violence, hlut escaped being- 'driven -upon the rocks or being detained in thy' Whirlpool, where Gruharu even ventured to open the mq'nholcV "When his dangfrous journey; , w!aa over he emerged, diz^y but unhurried. Hq tieulareß bis confident belief that he can go over tbe Falla' themselves . with Bafety. " _ i