It is almost impossible to conceive the extent of these smoking ruins.
An area of eight or ten acres above the dam is covered to a depth of
forty feet with shattered houses, borne from the resident centre of
Johnstown. In each of these houses, it is estimated, there were from one
to twenty or twenty-five people. This is accepted as data upon which to
estimate the number that perished on this spot, and if the data be
correct the bodies that lie beneath these ruins must run well up into
the thousands.

Members of the State Board of Health arrived in Nineveh this morning and
determined to proceed at once to dredge the river, to clean it of the
dead and prevent the spreading of disease. To this end they have wired
the State Department to furnish them with the proper appliances.

Drinking Poisoned Water.

From other points in this and connecting valleys the same fear of
pestilence is expressed. The cities of Pittsburgh and Allegheny, which
have a population of three hundred and fifty thousand and drink the
waters of the Allegheny River, down which corpses and debris from
Johnstown must flow unless stopped above, are in danger of an epidemic.
The water is to-day thick with mud, and bodies have been found as far
south of here as Beaver, a distance of thirty miles below Pittsburgh. To
go this distance the bodies followed the Conemaugh from Johnstown to the
Kiskiminetas, at Blairsville, joining the Allegheny at Freeport, and the
Ohio here, the entire distance from this point being about one hundred
and fifty miles.

"This is a very serious matter," said a prominent Pittsburgh physician
who is here to me to-day, "and one that demands the immediate attention
of the Board of Health officials. The flood of water that swept through
Johnstown has cleaned out hundreds of cesspools. These and the
barnyards' manure and the dirt from henneries and swamps that were swept
by the waters have all been carried down into the Allegheny River. In
addition to this there are the bodies of persons drowned. Some of these
will, in all likelihood, be secreted among the debris and never be
found. Hundreds of carcasses of animals of various kinds are also in the
river.

Typhus Dreaded.

"These will decay, throwing out an animal poison. This filth and
poisonous matter is being carried into the Allegheny, and will be pumped
up into the reservoir and distributed throughout the city. The result is
a cause for serious apprehension. Take, for exam