pon condition that such an indemnifying bond was filed. This bond was
to be filed with the prothonotary of Cambria county.

Father Boyle, of Ebensburg, said the records at the county seat had no
trace of such a bond. He found the record of the charter, but nothing
about the bond. As the association is known to be composed of very
wealthy people, there is much talk here of their being compelled to pay
at least a part of the damages.

The Rain Did It.

It begins to dawn on us that the catastrophe was brought about not
merely by the bursting of the dam of the old canal reservoir, but by a
rainfall exceeding in depth and area all previously recorded phenomena
of the kind. The whole drainage basin of the Kiskiminetas, and more
particularly that of the Conemaugh, was affected. An area of probably
more than 600 square miles poured its precipitation through the narrow
valley in which Johnstown and associate villages are located. It is easy
to see how, with a rainfall similar to that which caused the Butcher Run
disaster of a few years ago, fully from thirty to fifty times as much
water became destructive. The whole of the water of the lake would pass
Suspension Bridge at Pittsburgh inside of from seven to ten minutes,
while the gorge at Johnstown, narrowed by the activity of mines for
generations past, was clearly insufficient to allow a free course for
Stony Creek alone, which is a stream heading away up in Somerset county,
twenty-five or thirty miles south of Johnstown. That the rainfall of the
entire Allegheny Mountain system was unprecedented is clearly
demonstrated to any one who has watched the Allegheny and Monongahela
rivers for the past three days, and this view may serve to correct the
impression in the public mind that would localize the causes of the
widespread disaster to the bursting of any single dam.

Danger Was Anticipated.

Charles Parke, of Philadelphia, the civil engineer in the employ of the
South Fork Fishing Club, in company with George C. Wilson, ex-United
States District Attorney, and several other members of the club, reached
Johnstown and brought with them the first batch of authoritative news
from Conemaugh Lake, the bursting of which, it is universally conceded,
caused the disaster.

Mr. Parke was at first averse to talking, and seemed more interested in
informing his friends in the Quaker City that he was still in the land
of the living. On being pressed he denied most emphatically that t