SEP 21 '45

Romaine

050 R298

THOSE Who have never visited the western, slope of the Alleghany Mountains, find it difficult to realize the accounts that reach them of the sudden floods which rise sometimes in a single night, and sweeping through the gorges and valleys, bear irresistible destruction before them-uprooting trees,-bearing away from the scant farms the result of a season of toil,lifting dwellings from their foundations, and leaving behind, almost as suddenly as it was

accomplished, a scene of desolation in nature, and of sorrow in the domestic circle.

These sudden inundations are caused by the waters which fall upon the vast and rapid slopes of the mountains during heavy rain storms, and concentrating rapidly as they descend into the ravines, convert the brooks into streams, the streams into rivers, and the rivers into lakes; sometimes causing a rise in the Ohio River of twelve or fifteen feet in a single day, and covering, for a short period, large tracts of that beautiful and fertile valley. Owing to the frequency of these floods, the people of that region usually take the precaution to select for their dwelling-places and farms, elevated situations; but even then they are not entirely safe from danger, for it has occasionally happened that the flood has surpassed, in its extent, all human calculation, and many a family who has retired to rest in fancied security at night, has found itself houseless and homeless on the morrow the farm devastated-crops

destroyed, and cattle swept away. The following sketch will illustrate the hardships and sufferings that have been encountered by those hardy pioneers who, in advance of the age in which they lived, made the mountains vocal with civilization, and caused

"The wildernes: to blossom like the rose." Let the reader take a retrospective glance, for a period of about thirty-five years, from this present anno domino 1850, and see in his

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