BREAKING OF THE DYKES, HOLLAND.
overflowed in 1840 and poured its turbulent waters into the Rhine, flooding one hundred square miles of land, and drowning thousands. Another great flood in France occurred in 1856. In 1875, still another drowned a thousand people near Toulouse; while India, the same year lost many through floods.
But no such destruction of life ever visited our own land till within a year past, and the event is more to be deplored, in that it was caused by unexcusable negligence. That flood we must next consider.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD.
“A sullen hoarse murmur, and nameless fear!—
A sound like the tread of a hurrying host!—
A roar like the storm, as the wild waters near,
Like the dash of the sea on a crag-bordered coast!
A wave like a mountain sweeps swift through the vale
Ten thousand wrecked homes tossing dark in its spray,
Wild cries of death-anguish echo mocks with her wail—
And the fiend of the flood now has claimed his prey!”