water, my wife hanging upon a piece of
scantling. She let it go and was drowned almost within reach of my arm
and I could not help or save her. I caught a log and floated with it
five or six miles, but it was knocked from under me when I went over the
dam. I then caught a bale of hay and was taken out by Mr. Morenrow."

A despatch from Greensburg says the day express, which left Pittsburgh
at eight o'clock on Friday morning was lying at Johnstown in the evening
at the time the awful rush of waters came down the mountains. We have
been informed by one who was there that the coach next to the baggage
car was struck by the raging flood, and with its human freight cut loose
from the rest of the train and carried down the stream. All on board, it
is feared, perished. Of the passengers who were left on the track,
fifteen or more who endeavored to flee to the mountains were caught, it
is thought, by the flood, and likewise carried to destruction. Samuel
Bell, of Latrobe, was conductor on the train, and he describes the scene
as the most appalling and heartrending he ever witnessed.

A special despatch from Latrobe says:--"The special train which left the
Union Station, Pittsburgh, at half-past one arrived at Nineveh Station,
nine miles from Johnstown, last evening at five o'clock. The train was
composed of four coaches and locomotive, and carried, at the lowest
calculation, over nine hundred persons, including the members of the
press. The passengers were packed in like sardines and many were
compelled to hang out upon the platform. A large proportion of the
passengers were curiosity seekers, while there was a large sprinkling of
suspicious looking characters, who had every appearance of being crooks
and wreckers, such as visit all like disasters for the sole purpose of
plundering and committing kindred depredations."

When the train reached Nineveh the report spread through it that a
number of bodies had been fished out of the water and were awaiting
identification at a neighboring planing mill. I stopped off to
investigate the rumor, while the balance of the party journeyed on
toward Sang Hollow, the nearest approach to Johnstown by rail. I visited
Mumaker's planing mills and found that the report was true.

[Illustration: TAKING DEAD BODIES FROM A ROOF.]

All day long the rescuers had been at work, and at this writing (six
o'clock) they have taken out seventy-eight dead bodies, the majority of
whom are women and childre