nd it would be difficult to overdraw the awful features of a calamity
which has every element of horror.

The River and Lake.

Nature is so framed at the fated point for such a disaster that man was
called upon for unceasing vigilance. The Conemaugh makes its channel
through a narrow valley between high ranges. Numerous streams drain the
surrounding mountains into its current. Along its course swarm frequent
hamlets busy with the wealth dug from the seams of the earth. The chief
of these towns, the seat of an immense industry, lies in a little basin
where the gap broadens to take in a converging stream and then
immediately narrows again, no outlet save the constricted waterway. High
above stands a great lake which is held in check only by an artificial
barrier, and which, if once unchained, must pour its resistless torrent
through this narrow gorge like a besom of destruction overwhelming
everything before it. There were all the elements of an unparalleled
disaster. Years of immunity had given a feeling of security for all time
without some extraordinary and unexpected occasion. But the occasion
appeared when in unforseen force the rains descended and the floods
came, and to-day desolation reigns.

A Direful Calamity.

It is impossible yet to measure the extent of the calamity. But the
destruction of life and property must be something that it is appalling
to think of, and the sorrow and suffering to follow are incalculable. A
solemn obligation devolves upon the people of the whole country. We can
not remedy the past but we can alleviate the present and the future.
Thousands of families are homeless and destitute; thousands are without
means of support; perchance, thousands are bereft of the strong arms
upon which they have relied. There is an instant, earnest demand for
help. Let there be immediate, energetic, generous action. Let us do our
part to relieve the anguish and mitigate the suffering of a community
upon whom has fallen the most terrible visitation in all our history.

An Historic Catastrophe.

When an American Charles Reade wishes in the future to weave into the
woof of his novel the account of some great public calamity he will
portray the misfortune which overwhelmed the towns and villages lying in
the valley of the Conemaugh River. The bursting of a reservoir, and the
ensuing scenes of death and destruction, which are so vividly described
in "Put Yourself in His Place," were not the creatures