“In September, 1687, mountain torrents inundated Navarre, and two thousand persons were drowned. Twice, in 1787 and in 1802, the Irish Liffey overran its banks and caused great damage. A reservoir in Lurca, a city of Spain, burst in 1802, in much the same way as did the dam at Johnstown, and as a result one thousand persons perished. Twenty-four villages near Presburg, and nearly all their inhabitants, were swept away in April, 1811, by an overflow of the Danube. Two years later, large provinces in Austria and Poland were flooded, and many lives were lost. In the same year a force of two thousand Turkish soldiers, who were stationed on a small island near Widdin, were surprised by a sudden overflow of the Danube and all were drowned. There were two more floods in this year, one in Silesia, where six thousand persons perished, and the French army met such losses and privations that its ruin was accelerated; and another in Poland, where four thousand persons were supposed to have been drowned. In 1816, the melting of the snow on the mountains surrounding Strabane, Ireland, caused destructive floods: and the overflow of the Vistula, in Germany, laid many villages under water. Floods that occasioned great suffering occurred in 1829, when severe rains caused the Spey and Findhorn to rise fifty feet above their ordinary level. The following year the Danube again overflowed its banks, and inundated the houses of 50,000 inhabitants of Vienna.” The Saone
[Illustration: 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.
“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!