He will also be prepared with a pioneer machine to level a track, when it is necessary, where the ice is rough. His twenty-passenger boat can be raised or lowered, while in motion or at rest, to enable it to pass through a uniform depth of snow of three feet. It has devices that are ample and practical, by which it can pass over or through snow banks and drifts; even if it should be run into a bank of snow twenty feet in depth and there stopped, it can immediately be passed through it or over it, or be backed out with the greatest facility. It is an amphibious machine, is this Ice Boat, as it can be run off the ice at a speed of twenty miles an hour into the water with safety; and it can propel itself across the water to contact with the ice on the other side, and get out upon the ice and be put again in operation without any material delay. It is, also, almost dangerproof; for, if it should be thrown into the water by accident, on its side, or even bottom up, it would right itself instantly; and about thirty holes would have to be broken in the hull before it could be sunk, even if it were full of water. Mr. Wiard exhibited a model of his Ice Boat at the fair of the American Institute, N. Y., and received therefor the highest award; the operations of his model corroborate the statements made above; and the minutes of the Polytechnic Club, before whom he exhibited his plans at their request, says [_sic_] that the working of the model “proved his statements.” The practicability of the boat itself will soon be tested on the ice of the Mississippi, and the judgment which will then be pronounced [will be] a final one. [Corner torn off] driver only, and can go up and down hill and into the water, safely! “Please to say all this,” says Mr. Wiard, “for I assure you, I believe it all!” So will we all, when we see it, and the sight is promised us. Mr. John Cleveland, 35 Wall Street, N. Y., is now the trustee of the patent, and by the liberal subscription of a few intelligent and responsible gentlemen of that city Mr. Wiard is enabled to fully develop and test his plans. The machine he is now building is said to be beautiful as well as useful; and it seems likely to attract a number of New Yorkers to visit Prairie du Chien when Mr. Wiard brings it here. Should this invention prove to be a practical one, Norman Wiard’s name will be ranked along with that of Fulton, Stephenson, and Morse. If his machine should prove valueless, the worst that can or will be said, will be that he _deserved_ success. THE ICE BOAT[81] The Prairie du Chien _Leader_ says it is not, and never has been, the intention of Mr. Wiard to test the practicability of his invention with the boat half built last winter, and which remains in _statue_ [sic] _quo_ yet, being too large, heavy, and unwieldy for the experiment.