90 STEVENSON— INTERRELATIONS OF THE FOSSIL FUELS. 



After these violent floods have abated, the forests are seen practi- 

 cally uninjured by their brief submergence. The remarks by 

 Harris^^' are in place here. The Hawash River rises in the Abys- 

 sinian highlands at 8,000 feet above sea-level. In the dry season, it 

 can be forded easily but during the rainy season it is often converted 

 into a fierce torrent inundating the broad valley, which is covered 

 with trees and dense undergrowth, through which the explorer makes 

 way only with great difficulty. When the expedition approached 

 this river, it was very evident that there had been a flood, as " pen- 

 sive willows that drooped mournfully over the troubled current, 

 were festooned with recent drift, hanging many feet above the level 

 of the abrupt banks." The condition was very similar to that ob- 

 served by the writer in going by steamboat from San Francisco to 

 Sacramento, almost 50 years ago. He was perplexed by the presence 

 of clumsy debris in branches of trees at about 15 feet above the 

 water. This marked the level of the floods. 



The Ohio Valley flood of j\Iarch-April, 1913,^-^ was one of the 

 most disastrous recorded. The damage to the towns of southeastern 

 Ohio, as stated by Horton and Jackson, was almost 147,000,000 dol- 

 lars, 36,000 buildings were flooded or destroyed and 220 bridges were 

 carried away. The report is illustrated by 22 plates, showing con- 

 ditions during and after the flood in several large cities, which suf- 

 fered most severely. These show that trees in the streets resisted 

 not only the current but also the debris carried by the water ; houses 

 and timber were piled around the trees and even the telegraph poles. 

 One of the photographs gives ample proof that this was no gentle 

 backwater overflow but a typically torrential movement. 



The tenacity with which trees resist removal by floods is, to use 

 a moderate term, remarkable. For many years the writer has ridden 

 annually for more than 200 miles along the Connecticut River in 

 June and September. In many places, trees cover the face of first 

 terrace, extending frequently to within 18 inches from the line of 

 low water. The terrace or " first bottom " is composed of uncon- 



127 W. C. Harris, "The Highlands of Ethiopia," Amer. ed., New York, 

 1844, pp. 94-96. 



128 A. H. Horton and H. J. Jackson, U. S. Geo!. Survey, Water Supply 

 Paper, No. 334, 1913. 



