aster witnessed sights and
received impressions different from all others. The following graphic
account will thrill every reader:

The most exaggerative imagination cannot too strongly picture the awful
harvest of death, the wreck which accompanied that terrible deluge last
Friday afternoon. I succeeded in crossing from the north side of the
Little Conemaugh, a short distance above the point, to the sandy muddy
desert strewn with remnants of the buildings and personal property of
those who know not their loss.

It is almost an impossibility to gain access to the region, and it was
accomplished only after much difficulty in crossing the swiftly running
stream.

Standing at a point in this abode of thousands of dead the work of the
great flood can be more adequately measured than from any one place in
the devastated region. Here I first realized the appalling loss of life
and the terrible destruction of property.

It was about ten o'clock when the waters of Stony Creek rose, overflowed
their banks and what is known as the "flats," which includes the entire
business portion of the city of Johnstown. The Little Conemaugh was
running high at the same time, and it had also overreached the limit of
its banks. The water of both streams soon submerged the lower portion of
the town. Up to this time there was no intimation that a terrible
disaster was imminent. The water poured into the cellars of the houses
in the lower districts and rose several inches in the streets, but as
that had occurred before the people took no alarm.

Shortly after twelve o'clock the first drowning occurred. This was not
because of the deluge, it was simply the carelessness of the victim, who
was a driver for the Cambria Iron Company, in stepping into a cellar
which had been filled with water. The water continued to rise, and at
twelve o'clock had reached that part of the city about a block from the
point between Stony Creek and the Little Conemaugh.

Topography of the Place.

The topography of Johnstown is almost precisely like that of Pittsburgh,
only in a diminished degree. Stony Creek comes in from the mountains on
the northeast, and the Little Conemaugh comes in from the northwest,
forming the Conemaugh at Johnstown, precisely as the Allegheny and
Monongahela form the Ohio at Pittsburgh. On the west side of Stony Creek
are mountains rising to a great height, and almost perpendicularly from
the water. On the north side of the Conemaugh Riv