of 158 feet to the boiling cauldron below. I thought for a moment my
senses were lost. The feeling was one of absolute horror, but still I
knew when I struck the water of the lower river. The shock was not so
great, but I went down, down until the momentum had spent itself.
Below the surface _all was still_. Not a sound reached me. Slowly
I arose, but unfortunately on coming to the surface I came under the
falling of water and was carried back of the sheet that tumbles over
the precipice. It was then I began to suffer. The barrel was whirled
like a dasher in a churn; lifted, I should think, four or five feet
clear of the water, and thrown violently about, at the same time turned
around and around with the greatest velocity, struck on the rocks, and
each moment water was forcing itself in at the point where the anvil at
the bottom had been imperfectly put on. As the barrel turned violently
around and around the sensation was terrible.