own, were
left here and there, is there any trace of the material of the building
except the lumber. In the opinion of experts, all this stuff must have
been ground into powder and swept down the river. Johnstown will never
resume its former importance. A curse will hang over this beautiful
valley as long as this generation lasts. The sanitary experts who have
examined the place say that in all probability it will be plague ridden
for years and years.

Decomposing Bodies in the Wreck.

The massive stone bridge of the Pennsylvania Railroad, opposite the
Cambria Iron Works, marks the point of demarcation between the borough
of Johnstown and that of Cambria City. The changes in the situation
which have occurred since the eventful Friday have not been numerous.
The wreckage impacted beneath the arches has been removed from three of
them, leaving four, which are closed by masses of timber and drift
material. I climbed over the debris in the famous cul-de-sac and reached
the second from the Johnstown side after half an hour's labor. The
appearance was singular. Beneath the conglomeration of timber which
filled the cavity of the arch to a distance of twenty-five feet from the
top the waters of the Conemaugh flowed swiftly.

There was a network of telegraph wires, iron rods and metal work of
Pullman cars stretched across from stone work to stone work on either
side. The gridiron, as it were, penetrated far down into the water, and
it had proved sufficiently strong to resist the onward rush of the
lighter flotsam which swept before the onrolling wave. Lodged in this
strange pile was the body of a horse. Deep among the meshes a terrible
spectacle presented itself. There were the bodies of three people--a
woman, a child and a laborer with hobnailed shoes. They were beyond the
reach of the workers who are clearing the wreck near to the bridge and
the latter will be unable to reach the corpses until a considerable
amount of blasting with dynamite has been done. There was a faint odor
of decomposition and another day will cause the vicinity of the viaduct
to suggest a charnel house to the olfactory senses. There are many other
bodies, no doubt, beneath the debris and prevented from floating down
the stream by the ruins.

Cambria City Paralyzed.

Conemaugh City was connected with the Cambria Iron Works, on the
opposite side of the Conemaugh, by a temporary suspension bridge of
steel wire. The bridge was originally for two ra