emporized morgue are beyond powers of description
in their ghastliness, while the moans and groans of the suffering
survivors, tossing in agony, with bruised and mangled bodies, or
screaming in a delirium of fever as they issue from the numerous
temporary hospitals, make even the stoutest hearted quail with terror.
Nearly two thousand bodies have already been recovered, and as the work
of examining the wreckage progresses the conviction grows that the
magnitude of the calamity has not yet been approximated.

The Pile of Debris Still Burning.

The debris wedged against the big Pennsylvania Railroad stone bridge is
still burning, and the efforts of the firemen to quench or stay the
progress of the flames are as futile as were those of Gulliver's
Lilliputian firemen. The mass, which unquestionably forms a funeral pyre
for thousands of victims who lie buried beneath it, is likely to burn
for weeks to come. The flames are not active, but burn away in a sullen,
determined fashion.

There are twenty-six firemen here now--all level-headed fellows--who
keep their unwieldy and almost exhausted forces under masterful control.

Although they were scattered all over the waste places to-day, the heavy
work was done in the Point district, where a couple hundred mansions lie
in solid heaps of brick, stone and timbers.

One Corpse Every Five Minutes.

Here the labors of the searchers were rewarded by the discovery of a
corpse about every five minutes. As a general thing the bodies were
mangled and unrecognizable unless by marks or letters on their persons.
In every case decomposition has set in and the work of the searchers is
becoming one that will test their stomachs as well as their hearts.
Wherever one turns Pittsburghers of prominence are encountered. They
are busy, determined men, rendering valuable service.

Chief Evans, of the Pittsburgh Fire Department, was hustling around with
a force of twenty-four more firemen, just brought up to relieve those
who have been working so heroically since Saturday. Morris M. Mead,
superintendent of the Bureau of Electricity, headed a force of sixteen
sanitary inspectors from Pittsburgh, who are doing great work among the
dead.

How Bodies are Treated.

There are six improvised morgues now in Johnstown. They are in churches
and school-houses, the largest one being in the Fourth Ward
school-house, where planks have been laid over the tops of desks, on
which the remains are placed.