Re: Monday's answer (long)
Steve, Alex and Dan earned stars. Steve gets extra shine for the Three Stooges reference.
It was difficult not to include the word barrel. The answer is Niagara Falls and going over it in one. Canadian, Horseshoe side only, thank you very much.
The first thought was a large gutta-percha ball with weights on the bottom proposed by P.T. Barnum. But first he wanted to send a dog, and another name for a Black person as a test. It came to naught.
The woman was Annie Taylor in 1901. She did it first in an oak barrel weighing 160 lbs.�22� w at bottom, 34� in the middle and 15 inches at the top. She made it all right, but they lost the barrel and she had another made that she used as a prop selling her story on the street. She died a pauper.
Bobby Leach did it in a cigar shaped steel barrel in 1911. (He also shot the rapids and another time jumped off the Upper Steel Arch Bridge without a parachute�apparently all without injury. A slippery orange peel was his undoing later in life.
Charles Stevens tried next in an oak barrel. Unfortunately he used an anvil to keep the barrel upright and then attached it to his feet. Physics being what they are they found only his arm wrapped in a strap in the barrel later.
George Stathakis used a wooden barrel but it was heavy and only had air for three hours. He got caught in the rocks and sixteen hours later he was pulled out dead, but with him was a 105 year old pet turtle, still alive.
Jean Lussier used a rubber ball stuffed with cotton and inner tubes for �air� similar in design to what was proposed by Barnum. He walked away successful.
Red Hill tried it fully clothed with his pprotection being inner tubes lashed together. All they found of his effort on him later when he surfaced, naked, days later was a wrist watch.
Wm. Fitzgerald, a black man did it in a rubber ball in 1961 called the �plunge-o-sphere�.
John David Munday a non-swimmer with claustrophobia did it twice. One of the times using a seven feet long by 4 feet outfitted with radio equipment and oxygen, cylinder of steel, foam, and aluminum.
The two guys that did it successfully together wore hockey helmets, lying head to head, and took with them a case of beer.
The seven year old boy went over by accident with only a row boat and inexpensive store bought life vest. He made it. His adult companion who tried all he could do to prevent it going over didn�t.
One of the weirdest was the guy who tried it in a kayak. He took off his helmet so the photos would be clearer. He expected to paddle hard then �fly� off the edge and drop free to the bottom. He didn�t count on the adhesion factor of the water, no boundary layer was there to free the boat. He went over nose first and they are still looking for him (since 1990).
Since the 1950�s the falls is about one quarter as powerful, 50,000 cubic feet per second versus 200,000 cubic feet per second, as it once was before the Americans and Canadians siphoned off most of the water upstream to produce electricity. The fall from height is just as great, but the lack of water practically eliminates to possibility of being trapped behind the falls and churning underwater. The fines are substantial too. Anybody out there--with deep pockets�want to try extreme fallsing? The rocky bottomed American Falls still needs a taker.
Anyone interested in viewing the power of the Falls early on before the penstocks for electricity check out painter Frederick Church�s famous huge painting �Niagara� .
