It is intended by the parties having the route from here to Saint Paul to stock the line this winter, and to be prepared to do all business that may present itself.
The immense advantages arising to the Northwest from this invention must be apparent to all.
ICE BOATS, CHARIOTS, CUTTER--LETTER FROM MR. WIARD[80]
New York, Nov. 22, 1859. _169 Broadway, Room 35._
Please say to all, or as much of what I have written as you please, in your own words, for I assure you I believe it all myself, and I believe that many of your readers will be glad to have the information.
Accordingly, we say as requested, that Norman Wiard, inventor of the Ice Boat, will be in Prairie du Chien before long with a twenty-passenger steam ice boat, which he has now in process of construction at New York, and hopes by such means to keep open communication with St. Paul and Prairie du Chien, connecting, always up to time, with the Milwaukee & Mississippi Railroad.
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.