fic
reputation, who was then one of the general engineers, inspected the
dam. He condemned several matters in the way of construction and
reported that this had been changed and that the dam was perfectly safe.
My son, George R. Elder, was at that time a student in the Troy
Polytechnic University.

"His professor submitted a problem to the class which he immediately
recognized as being the question of the safety of the South Fork dam. He
sent it to me at the time in a letter, which, of course, is lost, with
everything else I possessed, in which he stated that the verdict of the
class was that the dam was safe. The president of the Cambria Iron
Company being still anxious, thought it might be good policy to have
some one inside of the fishing and hunting corporation owning the dam.
The funds of the company were therefore used to purchase two shares of
its stock, which were placed in the name of D.J. Morrell. After his
death these shares were transferred to and are still held by me,
although they are the property of the Cambria Iron Company. They have
not been sold because there was no market for them."

Untold Volumes of Water.

So far as the Signal Service is concerned, the amount of rainfall in the
region drained by the Conemaugh river cannot be ascertained. The Signal
Service authorities here, to whom the official there reported, received
only partial reports last Friday. There had been a succession of rains
nearly all of last week. The last rain commenced Thursday evening and
was unusually severe.

Mrs. H.M. Ogle, who had been the Signal Service representative in
Johnstown for several years and also manager of the Western Union office
there, telegraphed at eight o'clock Friday morning that the river marked
14 feet, rising; a rise of 13 feet in twenty-four hours. At eleven
o'clock she wired: "River 20 feet and rising, higher than ever before;
water in first floor. Have moved to second. River gauges carried away.
Rainfall, 2 3-10 inches." At twenty-seven minutes to one P.M., Mrs. Ogle
wired: "At this hour north wind; very cloudy; water still rising."

Nothing more was heard from her by the bureau, but at the Western Union
office here later in the afternoon she commenced to tell an operator
that the dam had broken, that a flood was coming, and before she had
finished the conversation a singular click of the instrument announced
the breaking of the current. A moment afterward the current of her life
was broken fo