Meanwhile, I had been asked by the Senate to write the history of the
Red Cross, and show the official action taken by our Government on the
acceptance of the treaty, which history the Senate would have printed at
the Government printing-office. This volume I prepared as requested. A
thousand copies were printed for information to the public, to be
circulated by the society; but with no frank or other means provided,
and with a postage of some ten cents a volume, we were compelled to
limit the circulation to the means.

The following year, 1883, a disastrous rise in the Ohio River called for
our aid. Dr. J. B. Hubbell, who had been our agent the year before, was
called from Michigan University, where he was completing a course, to
examine the needs of the inhabitants and take such relief as we could
provide. There was little loss of life, and the destruction of property
lay largely in the loss of stock, and washing away of the soil,
vegetation, and the means of reproduction.

A remarkable provision for this latter loss was made by the gift of Mr.
Hiram Sibley, the noted seed dealer of Rochester--who had become
associated with the Red Cross, being an old-time friend of the family of
its president--of ten thousand dollars' worth of seed, to replant the
washed-out lands adown the Mississippi. As the waters ran off the mud
immediately baked in the sunshine, making planting impossible after a
few days. Accordingly, Mr. Sibley's gift was sent with all haste to our
agent at Memphis, and in forty-eight hours, by train and boat, it was
distributed in the four States--Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, and
Mississippi--and planted for the crops of the coming season.

Besides this generous gift of material, a little money had been raised
and sent by the three societies of the Red Cross which had been formed,
viz.: Dansville and Syracuse, a few hundreds--something more from the
Red Cross at Rochester--always thoughtful and generous, which served to
help in the distribution of clothing and supplies promiscuously sent.
And at the finish of the work, when every donation had been carefully
acknowledged, one thousand dollars and some cents were left in the
treasury unexpended.

A cyclone occurring within a few months in Louisiana and southern
Alabama, cutting a swath from New Orleans to Mobile, decided us to send
eight hundred dollars of this reserve to the secretary of the Red Cross
Society of New Orleans, which sum was forwarded by