uarding the money, providing for our own safety and rescuing
the poor people floating by. We threw out ropes and gathered logs and
timbers together until we had enough to make a raft, which we bound
together with ropes and used in rescuing people. During the night we
rescued Henry Weaver, his wife and two children; Captain Carswell, wife
and three children, and three servant girls; Patrick Ravel, wife and one
child; A.M. Dobbins and two others whose names I have forgotten. Besides
this we cut large pieces of canvas and oilcloth and wrapped it around
bread and meat and other eatables and threw it or floated it out to
those who went by on housetops, rafts, etc., whom we could not rescue
without getting our raft in the drift and capsizing. We must have fed
100 people in this way alone.

When we were rescued ourselves we took the money over to Prospect Hill,
and sent to the justice of the peace, who swore us all in to keep guard
over our own money and that taken by Paymaster Barry from the Cambria
Iron Company's general offices, amounting to $4000, under precisely the
same circumstances that marked our escape. We remained on guard until
Monday night, when the soldiers came over and escorted us back to the
office of the Cambria Iron Company, where we placed the money in the
company's vault.

So far as known at this hour only eighteen bodies have been this
morning recovered in the Conemaugh Valley. One of these was a poor
remnant of humanity that was suddenly discovered by a teamster in the
centre of the road over which his wagons had been passing for the past
forty-eight hours. The heavy vehicles had sunk deeply in the sand and
broken nearly every bone in the putrefying body. It was quite impossible
to identify the corpse, and it was taken to the morgue and orders issued
for its burial after a few hours' exposure to the gaze of those who
still eagerly search for missing friends.

Only the hardiest can bear to enter the Morgue this morning, so
overwhelming is the dreadful stench. The undertakers even, after
hurriedly performing their task of washing a dead body and preparing it
for burial, retreat to the yard to await the arrival of the next ghastly
find. A strict order is now in force that all bodies should be interred
only when it becomes impossible to longer preserve them from absolute
putrefaction. There is no iron-clad rule. In some instances it is
necessary to inter some putrid body within a few hours, while others ca