The Floods in Germany and America.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 867, 12 October 1888, Page 11

The Floods in Germany and America.

(C. F. Gordon Gumming, in the. ‘ Sun Magazine.’) On April sth the towns of Elbing and Marienburg were reported as being 15 feet under water, and some parts of Passen fully 20ft. The inundated tract around Elbing covers an area of nearly 400 square miles, all lying under ice and water, and with no possibility of draining the submerged lands in time for cultivation this year. Far away to the west the same sad story comes from Hanover on the banks of the Elbe ; here also the accumulation of ice led to breaches in the embankments, and the rapidly melting snow brought down suoh a deluge as overspread

upwards of a hundred square miles, overwhelming as many villages. Fully .10,000 parsons lost all their possessions, being reduced from affluence to sudden poverty, and as many more have suffered seriously. The village of Domitz in Mecklenburg was left isolated in the midst of a wild sea of waters, and among the many pathetic inoidents of these trying weeks was the doath of fifteen brave fellows. —pioneers from the nearest garrison—who lost their lives in the endeavour to carry food to these isolated villagers. Nor is it in Europe alone that the melting of tho snows has proved so serious a matter. Never since ISSI havo the waters of the Mississippi risen, to such s height or done suoh grievous damage in the third week of May, ISBS. In Illinois County the rich cultivated lands are protected from any ordinary inundation by great embankments whioh extend for upwards of a hundred miles along the river. For some time past the farmers, dreading the possibility of a disastrous ‘ freshet,’ had been at work night and day endeavouring to strengthen these embankments, and when it became evident that all their labour was unavailing, horsemen were sent off galloping in every direction to give the people notice to fly to the high bluffs in Illinois and Missouri. Thousands then fled, compelled to abandon all their household treasures. Those who possessed boats placod themselves with all their families in these to await the coming of the flood which was to destroy all the fruit of their labours. At many different points the embankment, gave way, leaving gaps 300 or 400 feet wide, through which, with awful roar, the overwhelming torrents rushed forth in a volume of water twenty feet in depth. The town of Quincy was flooded, and the fertile valley extending from this town to Hannibal (an area of a quarter of a million acres of the finest arable land, teemiug with abundant crops of fine winter wheat, promising a harvest of from forty to sixty bushels to the acre) lay deep beneath a wide waste of angry waters. The fine wooded pastures with'their herds of cattle and horses were likewise overwhelmed, and multitudes of beasts were drowned. Others esoapel to the dry parts of the embankment, and there awaited rescue or starvation. It seemed strange to hear that their sufferings were not only from hunger but also from thirst, as with water on every side they c.ould not r6aoh any without incurring imminent risk of being swept away by the flood. The unhappy human fugitives, men, women, and children, thus suddenly and totally ruined, assembled on the bluffs, and thence looked down upon the scene of desolation, only floating furniture and drowning stock betraying where their homes lay beneath the waters. To add to their misery, hungry and unsheltered, the rain poured steadily for ten days. ■ On the railways, bridges .and culverts were carried away, and for a distance of many miles, at various points, the rails were, washed away by the flood, and piled along the embankments and in the woods. Even large buildings, such as warehouses and factories, have been so undermined by the force of the torrent as to be rendered unsafe. In short, the damage in the immediate neighbourhood of Quincy is estimated at fully four millions sterling, to say nothing of all the suffering entailed by serious exposure and consequent sickness. In short, the sum total of human misery directly traceable to the unwonted snowfall of 1887 must impress all men with a very sincere respect for the power of snowflakes.