could secure a transfer of a large number of shares of the club's stock
to himself, accompanied by a good sized roll of money. It is certain
that the cottage owners cannot repudiate their ownership. None of them,
however, will occupy the houses this summer.

The Club Found Guilty.

Coroner Hammer, of Westmoreland county, who has been sitting on the dead
found down the river at Nineveh, concluded his inquests to-day. His trip
to South Fork Dam on Wednesday has convinced him that the burden of this
great disaster rests on the shoulders of the South Fork Hunting and
Fishing Club of Pittsburgh. The verdict was written to-night, but not
all the jury were ready to sign it. It finds the South Fork Hunting and
Fishing Club responsible for the loss of life because of gross, if not
criminal negligence, and of carelessness in making repairs from time to
time. This would let the Pennsylvania Railroad Company out from all
blame for allowing the dam to fall so badly out of repair when they got
control of the Pennsylvania Canal and abandoned it. The verdict is what
might have been expected after Wednesday's testimony.

Mr. A.M. Wellington, with P. Burt, associate editor of the _Engineering
News_, of New York, has just completed an examination of the dam which
caused the great disaster here. Mr. Wellington states that the dam was
in every respect of very inferior construction, and of a kind wholly
unwarranted by good engineering practices of thirty years ago. Both the
original and reconstructed dams were of earth only, with no heart wall,
but only riprapped on the slopes.

The original dam, however, was made in dammed and watered layers, which
still show distinctly in the wrecked dam. The new end greatly added to
its stability, but it was to all appearances simply dumped in like an
ordinary railroad fill, or if rammed, the wreck shows no evidence of the
good effect of such work. Much of the old part is standing intact, while
the adjacent parts of the new work are wholly carried off. There was no
central wall of puddle or masonry either in the new or old dam. It has
been the invariable practice of engineers for thirty or forty years to
use one or the other in building high dams of earth. It is doubtful if
there is a single dam or reservoir in any other part of the United
States of over fifty feet in height which lacks this central wall.

Ignorance or Carelessness.

The reconstructed dam also bears the mark of great ignorance