the air, however, and disinfectants began to come in
in answer to the appeal. The streets were covered with a solution of
lime, and carbolic acid was showered everywhere.

GALVESTON NOT THE ONLY SUFFERER

And not only Galveston was a sufferer in this storm. For fifty miles
along the coast, on both sides of the city, the storm found victims. The
waters of the sea were carried inland ten miles all along the coast. The
total loss of life in Galveston and near-by places amounted to 9,000;
the property damage to $30,000,000.

THE MISSISSIPPI ON A RAMPAGE

"The Mississippi River in flood," says a recent writer, "takes
everything with it. To watch the endless procession which the swift
current carries by is to see all the properties of tragedies. The
Mississippi in flood is the despoiler of homes. Houses come floating
down the stream, outbuildings, furniture and myriads of smaller things,
tossed by waves in the 'runs' or sailing on serenely in the broader
stretches. Great trees go by. They are evidence that the Mississippi has
asserted its majesty somewhere and has cut a new channel to please
itself, eating away bank, growth, and all. Carcasses of cows and horses
and dogs float down the stream, carrying a pair of buzzards, those
scavengers who have so much work to do after the floods have receded. It
is a terrible and a melancholy sight."

THE FLOOD OF 1912

In April and May, 1912, the Mississippi reached a height never before
equaled, and the great river went tearing through levee after levee on
its resolute course to the sea. The river reached a maximum width of
sixty miles, killed 1,000 persons, rendered 30,000 homeless, and caused
damage to the amount of $50,000,000.

By April 2d, Columbus, Missouri, was buried under fifteen feet of water,
and in some parts of the town residences were wholly submerged. New
Madrid was not much better off, and Hickman, Kentucky, looked like a
small city of Venice. President Taft sent a hurry call to Congress for
half a million dollars, and within fifteen minutes after his message was
read, the lower house had passed an appropriation bill and sent it to
the Senate, which laid everything else aside to give it right of way. By
April 5th, the Reelfoot Lake district, covering 150 square miles of
Kentucky farm land, was an inland lake and the river at Cairo, Illinois,
had risen to nearly fifty-four feet, the average depth from St. Louis to
New Orleans being ordinarily but nine feet.