to a speed that should leave all competitors behind. There
was frequent racing between the packets on the Ohio and Mississippi, and
the frightful calamities from bursting boilers continued for a long time
before public opinion quelled the boyish love of victory which tempted
not only the steamboatmen but their passengers too. These joined with
the captain in forcing the boat to the top of its speed, at the risk
of a swift or agonizing death to all on board; and it was no doubt
with their full approval that the master of the beautiful new steamer
_Moselle_ took the chance that resulted in the loss of more than two
hundred lives on the 26th of April, 1838. She had just left her moorings
at Cincinnati for her trip to Louisville, and had run up to take on a
family from a raft a little way above the city. In order that she might
show her speed before the crowd on the landing, and pass a rival boat in
sight of all as she returned, the captain held to the full head of steam
with which he had started. Her wheels had scarcely turned, after she
parted from the raft, when her boilers burst with a roar like thunder.
The air was instantly filled with the flying fragments of the wreck,
and with the bodies and the heads and limbs of men, women, and children.
These fell, strewing the shore and dropping into the river, where what
was left of the Moselle sank within fifteen minutes. Cries of anguish,
groans and shrieks from the sufferers, followed the awful sound of the
explosion. Many of the victims whom the accident had spared were drowned
before boats could reach them. The mangled body of the captain was
hurled into the street; the pilot was thrown a hundred feet into the air
and fell back into the stream.

[Illustration: Steamboat Explosion 217]

In 1876, on the evening of December 29, an express train of the Lake
Shore Railroad, broke through the bridge at Ashtabula, and plunged
seventy-five feet down into the bed of the creek below. The train was
of eleven cars with a hundred and fifty-six passengers on board, and the
bridge was further strained by the weight of the two massive locomotives
which drew it. The night was extremely cold, and a blinding snow storm
was raging, while the freezing wind blew a gale. The wreck at once took
fire, and with the cries of the wounded were now mingled the agonized
prayers of those who saw themselves doomed to death in the blazing ruins
which imprisoned them. Nearly every one on the train was hurt