t the magnificent city has
been almost entirely destroyed by fire!]

[Illustration: NIAGARA FALLS--AMERICAN SIDE.]

CHAPTER XXVII.

CHICAGO TO NEW YORK.

LEAVE CHICAGO--THE ICE HARVEST--MICHIGAN CITY--THE FOREST--A RAILWAY
SMASHED--KALAMAZOO--DETROIT--CROSSING INTO CANADA--AMERICAN
MANNERS--ROEBLING'S SUSPENSION BRIDGE--NIAGARA FALLS IN WINTER--GOAT
ISLAND--THE AMERICAN FALL--THE GREAT HORSE-SHOE FALL--THE RAPIDS FROM
THE LOVERS' SEAT--AMERICAN COUSINS--ROCHESTER--NEW YORK--A
CATASTROPHE--RETURN HOME.

For some distance out of Chicago, the railway runs alongside the fine
avenue fronting Lake Michigan. We pass a long succession of villas
amidst their gardens and shrubberies, now white with snow and frost.
Then we cross an inlet on a timber viaduct laid on piles driven into
the bed of the lake. The ice at some parts is thrown up irregularly in
waves, and presents a strange aspect. It looks as if it had been
frozen solid in one moment at a time when the wind was blowing pretty
hard.

At another part, where the ice is smoother, men were getting in the
ice harvest between us and the shore. The snow is first cleared from
the surface by means of a snow plane. Then the plough, drawn by a
horse, with a man guiding the sharp steel cutter, makes a deep groove
into the ice. These grooves are again crossed by others at right
angles, until the whole of the surface intended to be gathered in is
divided into sections of about four feet square. When that is done,
several of the first blocks taken out are detached by means of
hand-saws; after which the remainder are easily broken off with
crow-bars. The blocks are then stored in the large ice-houses on
shore, several of which are so large as to be each capable of holding
some 20,000 tons of ice.

The consumption of ice in the States is enormous. Every one takes ice
in their water, in winter as well as in summer. Even the commonest
sort of people consume it largely; and they send round to the store
for ten cents' worth of ice, just as our people send round to the
nearest public for six penny worth of beer. I have heard Americans who
have been in London complain of the scarcity of ice with us, and the
parsimonious way in which it is used. But then we have not the
enormous natural stores of ice close to our doors, as they have at
Chicago and many other of the large American towns.

Meanwhile we have skirted the shores of the lake, and shot into the
country, the snow lyin