In view of the fact that nearly every year persons are drawn into the rapids and carried over the Falls, a New York journalist suggested a most extraordinary method of saving them. He proposed that a cable should be stretched across the rapids, above the Falls, strong enough to arrest boats, and to which persons in danger might cling until rescued. But this kind and ingenious person forgot that old canal-boats, rafts of logs, and large trunks of trees, with roots attached, would be troublesome things to hold at anchor. As well hope to stay an Alpine avalanche with pipe-stems. CHAPTER XVI. The first Suspension Bridge--The Railway Suspension Bridge--Extraordinary vibration given to the Railway Bridge by the fall of a mass of rock--De Veaux College--The Lewiston Suspension Bridge--The Suspension Bridge at the Falls. On the partial completion of the Hydraulic Canal, the principal stockholders, with a number of invited guests, celebrated the event on July 4, 1857, by an excursion from Buffalo in the _Cygnet_, the first steamer that ever landed within the limits of the village of Niagara. The same route is followed during the season of navigation by tugs towing canal-boats and rafts out and in. No passenger boat, however, has been placed on the route, although the sail on the river is a charming one. [Illustration: HOW THE SUSPENSION BRIDGE WAS BEGUN] Mr. Charles Ellet, in 1840, built the first suspension bridge over the chasm. He offered a reward of five dollars to any one who would get a string across it. The next windy day all the boys in the neighborhood were kiting, and before night a youth landed his kite in Canada and received the reward. The first iron successor of the string was a small wire cable, seven-eighths of an inch in diameter. To this was suspended a wire basket in which two persons could cross the chasm. The basket was attached to an endless rope, worked by a windlass on each bank. At an entertainment given on the occasion of the completion of the bridge, the good people of the embryo village at the bridge, elated with their new acquisition, were inclined to regard their neighbors at the Falls with patronizing sympathy. One of the latter said to Mr. Ellet, "This bridge is a very clever affair, and you only need the Falls here to build up a respectable village." "Well," he replied, "give me money enough and I will put them here." He had great faith in dollar-power.