A WOMAN'S PLUNGE OVER NIAGARA.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 4925, 15 January 1902, Page 4

A WOMAN'S PLUNGE OVER NIAGARA.

On October 25 there appeared a paragraph in the newspapers to the effect that a woman had successfully

accomplished the unique feat of passing over the Niagara Fal<B ia a barrel. „ It is now possible to give a detailed account of thin astounding journey, undertaken by Mrs Anne Edson Taylor, on her 43rd birthday. Mrs Taylor herself designed the barrel, working out the details with such aid as she could get. During the trip she wore the belt that Captain Jobason, the life-saver, bad advised ber to uee after she had sought his advice — he had tried in vain to dissuade her from making the trip. Two large cushions protected the front and back of ber body from the shoulders to her knees. In front of her face were three small airholes. 'Into one of them was fitted a piece of rubber hose 4ft long, with a spout she could hold to her mouth for air if the supply to be pumped into the barrel gave out before Bhe was

picked up. On October 24 Mrs Taylor started for the fall?, having ■ -been rowed out to Grass Island by

boatmen. All things being in condition satisfactory to Mrs Taylor, she cheerfully gave the order to close the manhole and pump the t air in. The barrel and Mrs Taylor were sent adrift. It was planned to have the barrel caught by a current that would carry it towards the middle of the Horseshoe Fall, 158 ft high. At any other place destruction would have been absolutely certain, for the water falls on the rocks with a force that would crush any craft made by human hands. But on the brink of the Horseshoe Fall there is a great expanse of deep, smooth, green water that drops into a bole of unknown depth below. Both above and below there are fewer rocks than at any other part of the falls. By astonishing kick the barrel did exactly what it was expected to do. Even on the way tovihe^brink death was threatened by jagged rocks on every side, but the conservative barrel kept to the middle of the current. At 423 p.m. exactly it shot over the edge of the mighty Horseshoe Full at a nice smooth place. Just after the barrel passed the brink the head tilted forward, but it righted itself immediately. It went down in an upright position— that is, bottom fljrpt down the cataract. 'It was just

as if I could feel myself hanging oh the edge of a sheer precipice and shutting my eyes before the drop into the abyss. Now, I tell you I knew exactly where I was. I knew I was on the edge of the precipice, and braced myself for the shock, and I think that for about three seconds I lost my reason. I did not faint, but my mind was gone. The next thing I knew I was in the cataract below. It must have been the velocity of going over that took my senses away.' The barrel shot down the face of the cataract with lightning-like rapidity. Then it disappeared in a boiling cloud of foam. Half a minute later it bobbed up in the turbulent; river. At 440 several men caught the barrel with poles from a rock on the bank of the river. The spot was 600 yards from the falls. They were surprised to see it uninjured. They pulled out an air-hole, and called out, ' Are you alive ? ' Mrs Toylor replied in a faint voice, f Yes.' They bad to saw off the top of the barrel to get it off. Then they picked Mrs Taylor out. Her face was bruised, but she was able to walk to a carriage with a little assistance. An evening's nursing restored her.