ed from the shore,
when an explosion took place, by which the whole of the forepart of the
vessel was literally blown up. The passengers were unhappily in the
most exposed positions on the deck, and particularly on the forward
part, sharing the excitement of the spectators on shore, and
anticipating the pleasure of darting rapidly past the city in the swift
Moselle. The power of the explosion was unprecedented in the history of
steam; its effect was like that of a mine of gunpowder. All the
boilers, four in number, were simultaneously burst; the deck was blown
into the air, and the human beings who crowded it hurried into instant
destruction. Fragments of the boilers, and of human bodies, were thrown
both to the Kentucky and the Ohio shore; and as the boat lay near the
latter, some of these helpless victims must have been thrown a quarter
of a mile. The body of Captain Perry, the master, was found dreadfully
mangled, on the nearest shore. A man was hurled with such force, that
his head, with half his body, penetrated the roof of a house, distant
more than a hundred yards from the boat. Of the number who had crowded
this beautiful boat a few minutes before, nearly all were hurled into
the air, or plunged into the water. A few, in the after part of the
vessel, who were uninjured by the explosion, jumped overboard. An
eye-witness says that he saw sixty or seventy in the water at one time,
of whom not a dozen reached the shore.

"The news or this awful catastrophe spread rapidly through the city,
thousands rushed to the spot, and the most benevolent aid was promptly
extended to the sufferers--to such, we should rather say, as were within
the reach of human assistance--for the majority had perished.

"The writer was among those who hastened to the neighbourhood of the
wreck, and witnessed a scene so sad that no language can depict it with
fidelity. On the shore lay twenty or thirty mangled and still bleeding
corpses, while others were in the act of being dragged from the wreck or
the water. There were men carrying away the wounded, and others
gathering the trunks, and articles of wearing apparel, that strewed the
beach.

"The survivors of this awful tragedy presented the most touching objects
of distress. Death had torn asunder the most tender ties; but the
rupture had been so sudden and violent, that as yet none knew certainly
who had been taken, nor who had been spared. Fathers were inquiring for
children,