Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1876 — A Base With an Avalanche. [ARTICLE]

A Base With an Avalanche.

It wae four years ago last winter. I was coming down with a train loaded’ with cattle. The weather had been bad for weeks ana fee snow lay deep, butt was melting off fast in the warm weather that had Tasted nearly a week. The ground was saturated, and 1 noticed that! things looked shaky on the mountain. I was feeling my way along careftrily, thinking the traek might spring, as the bed was wet and sloppy, when, just as I got around the point of this ridge, I looked op-, and it seemed to me that the whole mountain above me had broken loose. Fox hundreds of feet wide the hillside was in motion, and charging down on me. The slide started 100 yards above the track, and was coming right down on me Like lightning. Rocks, trees and snow-drifts plunged down the face of the mountain with a thundering roar, and seemed bent on overwhelming us and burying us in the canon thousands of feet below. I was never so close to death before, although I have had my share of perils on the road. For a moment I was stupefied, the danger was so great and escape so hopeless, but only for a moment. I determined net to die without an effort, but clapped on all steam, while the brakes were thrown off at the sometime. You can see for yourself that the grade is heavy here, andi can believe that we made fast time. The engine seemed to know her danger, and to gather herself for an effort. She leaped, quivering and snorting down the grade in the maddest race I ever saw. Down came fee avalanche like lightning directly npoo us, throwing up clouds of flying snow and splinters and rock, and away flew the old engine like a thing of life and beauty, as she was dragging the cars like the wind down the grade after her, abreaat the slide. But it seemed doomed to be ail in vain. The avalanche came fester every moment. It was almost npon us. The rocks began to bound against the cars and over them, and the train was hidden in a cloud of snow. But we were flying through the air now; the wheels seemed never to touch the rail, and just as I was giving up hope, the engine rushed past mat little point of land just back there where the little ravine comes down. This turned the current of the slide: so to speak, a little, and was our salvation. The engine rushed past the point just as the slide reached the track, and a big liine, uprooted in the edge of tne avaanche, fell across the next car to the last one and crushed it. The track was swept away like a cobweb in a gale, the couplings of me cars broke, and thecars fell off into the chasm left in the wake of me slide and were carried down to me river a thousand yards below. What mere is left of them lies mere yet. The jerk made me engine and train jump the track, but she kept on her feet, and we got off with a few braises. That I account one of the greatest dangers I ever met in my twenty years of railroading. —Ran Francieeo Chronicle.

Tqwauds the close of a ball in Paris me other night, a young lady who was passionately fond of dancing was asked by her mother to prepare for me carriage. “ Only mis last waltz,” entreated the veung girl, and she glided away with her partner. Suddenly he cried ont In horror. The young girl had died while in his arms, and he was waltzing with a corpse. L\’ Some time ago it was noticed mat parts of me iron roof of one of me large railroad stations in England were out of repair. When these were removed and examined it was found that me whole roof waa so corroded and damaged aa to necessitate its removal. The corrosion waa attributed to me action of the sulphurous acid artsing from'fee combustion of coal In fee locomotives that passed under the covering- . . :