rozen surface of Otsego
Lake offers the means of pleasure and occupation. In some seasons the
freezing of the lake occurs within a few hours, after a great and sudden
fall in temperature, during a night of calm and intense cold. At such
times, before snow has fallen upon the surface, the lake presents a
scene of splendor. The ice is quite transparent, and has the effect of a
great sheet of glass spread out amid the hills. This offers a perfect
surface for skating, and attracts not only the boys and girls of the
village, but a large number of their elders. The lake grows lively with
the gracefully gliding promenade of skaters, with here and there a group
playing at hockey, while others disport themselves at "crack the whip."
The friction of so many gliding feet imparts to the frozen surface a low
and weirdly humming sound, and the droning note is echoed by the hills,
until the valley resounds with monotonous music. There are times when
the lake is so well frozen that skaters traverse the entire length. In
some seasons ice-boats have been used, slanting from end to end of the
lake with prodigious speed. As the winter advances and the ice grows
stronger, driving upon the lake becomes common, and horse-races upon the
ice have sometimes been included among the winter sports.

At about five miles above the foot of the lake, and extending across it
from shore to shore, a large fissure in the ice usually appears during
the winter. This fissure is sometimes so wide that a team cannot cross
it, and many years ago a span of horses was accidentally driven into it.
The crevice in the ice has caused much speculation. The lake is narrow
at the place where the crack appears, and the fissure is supposed to be
created by expansion from the north and from the south, causing the ice
to rise several feet in gable-like form until the ridge cracks, for
fragments of ice are found on each side of the crevice.[125]

The tremendous forces exerted by the expansion of the freezing lake cry
aloud on still winter nights, whenever, after a period of thawing
weather, the mercury suddenly drops to a point far below zero. On such
nights, while the trees of the surrounding forest here and there begin
to be so penetrated with the fierce cold that they crack like
rifle-shots, the ice-bound lake sets up an unearthly groaning, and the
cavernous sound of its bellowing echoes dismally over the sleeping
village, like the trumpetings of some huge leviathan in ago