, Tex., May 15, 1896; 78 killed and 150
injured; property loss, $165,000.

St. Louis and East St. Louis, Mo., May 27, 1896; 306 identified killed;
property loss, $12,000,000. Same tornado visited many places in Missouri
and Illinois, causing an additional property loss of $1,000,000.

West India hurricane, September 29 and 30, 1896, covering Florida,
Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia, District of Columbia,
Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York; 114 killed; property loss,
$7,000,000.

Eastern Michigan, May 25, 1897; 47 killed, 100 injured; property loss,
$400,000.

Galveston hurricane, September 8, 1900; 9,000 killed; property loss,
$30,000,000; estimated wind velocity, 120 miles an hour.

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CHAPTER XXXIII

LESSONS OF THE CATACLYSM AND PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES

NOT A VISITATION OF PUNISHMENT--THE HELPLESSNESS OF MAN BEFORE
NATURE--THE KINSHIP OF HUMANITY--INCENTIVE TO ENTERPRISE--THE GREATEST
LESSON--MEASURES AGAINST REPETITION OF DISASTER--UTILIZING NATURAL
RESERVOIRS--PROMOTION OF FORESTRY--CONSTRUCTION OF DAMS--SECRETARY
LANE'S PLAN--A PROBLEM FOR THE PANAMA ENGINEERS.

With each succeeding dispatch from the districts stricken by flood and
tornado it became clearer that the first impressions of the disaster,
shocking as they were, fell not far beneath the dreadful reality.

Hundreds overwhelmed in the rushing floods, hundreds of thousands spared
from sudden death only to suffer hunger and thirst and hardship and the
perils of fire, cities submerged, villages swept away, countless homes
and vast industries destroyed, miles upon miles of populous land drowned
under turbulent waters, and over all the grim shadows of starvation and
disease--this catastrophe defies picture and parallel to express its
desolating horror.

The widespread calamity, which smote with its cruelest force the
beautiful city of Dayton, is one of those for which no personal
responsibility can be placed. Like the tidal flood which devastated
Galveston and the earth upheaval which laid San Francisco in ruins, it
is a convulsion which could not have been foreseen or stayed.

NOT A VISITATION OF PUNISHMENT

In the presence of such a fearful disaster there are few persons who
will say, but there are some who will think, that this is in some manner
a visitation decreed upon the communities which suffer. The very
magnitude