It was from the Terrapin Rocks to the Canadian side that Blondin wished to stretch his rope, elsewhere described, and it was over the very centre of Niagara's warring powers he desired to perform his daring feat, looking down upon that shimmering guarded secret of the "Heart of Niagara." The Porters, who owned Goat Island, however, refused to become parties to what they considered an improper exposure of life and Blondin stretched his cable farther down the river, near the site of the crescent steel arch bridge. [Illustration: Remains of Stone Piers of the "First Railway in America"--the British Tramway up Lewiston Heights, 1763.] Standing upon these rocks and looking out over that hurrying mass of waters, it seems almost impossible to imagine any power being able to stop them; but on the 29th of March, 1848, the impossible happened, the Niagara ran dry. From the American shore across the rapids to Goat Island one could walk dry-shod. From Goat Island and the Canadian shore the waters were contracted to a small stream flowing over the centre of what was then the Horseshoe; only a few tiny rivulets remained falling over the precipice at other points. The cause of this unnatural phenomenon was wind and ice. Lake Erie was full of floating ice. The day previous the winds had blown this ice out into the lake. In the evening the wind suddenly changed and blew a sharp gale from exactly the opposite direction, driving the mass of ice into the river and gorging it there, thus cutting off almost the whole water supply, and in the morning people awoke to find that the Niagara had departed. The American Fall was no more, the Horseshoe was hardly a ghost of its former self. Gone were the rapids, the fighting, struggling waters. Niagara's majestic roar was reduced to a moan. All day people walked on the rock bed of the river, although fearful lest the dam formed at its head should give way at any moment. By night, the warmth of the sun and the waters of the lake had begun to make inroads on the barrier and by the morning of the next day Niagara had returned in all its grandeur. However cold Niagara's winter may be, the moan of falling water here can always be heard, though at times the volume is very small. The winter scenes here often take rank in point of wonder and beauty with the cataract itself. When the river is frozen over below the Falls the phenomenon is called an "Ice Bridge," the blowing spray sometimes building a gigantic sparkling mound of wonderful beauty. The island trees above the Falls, covered by the same spray, assume curiously beautiful forms which, as they glitter in the sun, turn an already wonder-land into a strange fairyland of incomparable whiteness and glory.