1160 Floods, their History and Relations. (December, 
into the northern mountain and lake sources. While the floods 
thus formed are never of great height comparatively, yet their 
long continuation and force are means of most potent destruc- 
tion. 
The Ohio flood range is the most terrible on the earth’s sur- 
face. The water waves generated by it surpass in height, size 
and power the greatest tidal waves of the ocean. All atmos- 
pheric destruction by tornado, simoon, whirlwind and water- 
spout, and all the damage done through subterranean upheavals 
by volcano and earthquake do not compare with the ravages of 
the floods of this river. Here is a stream lying nearly parallel 
with the equator, every portion of which is simultaneously 
affected by the sun’s heat. When the temperate zone is turned 
toward the sun in the spring, the Ohio’s ice, its entire drain- 
age area and all its sources are let loose at once, and a sudden 
and awful destruction follows. At this time the Ohio is not 
a tributary of the Mississippi; the latter is its confluent. Its 
gigantic projectile of water, often 100 feet high, 600 feet broad 
and 300 miles long, is hurled on its mission of obliteration, 
sweeping before it cities, towns, forests, farms, levees, live stock, 
shipping and humanity. When it reaches Cairo it is re-enforced 
by the gradually forming floods of the Mississippi and Missouri, 
and there begins its unlocking of gigantic ice gorges which 
greatly increase its destructiveness. To protect the riparian 
country from these floods and repair their damages, the United 
States has expended $500,000,000. The individual losses sus- 
tained probably amount to twice that sum. 
There is an intimate connection between floods and business. 
High floods and low business go hand in hand. The present finan- 
cial depression was directly precipitated and perhaps caused solely 
by the last great flood at Cincinnati. That city was then—as in 
every spring time—largely in debt to New York, Chicago and 
other commercial centers, for merchandise. Owing to the con- 
_ dition of the roads and the losses of small riparian and dependent 
_ towns and cities from the flood, the Southern merchants could 
= not collect on the products supplied by the North. They were 
therefore obliged to renew their notes. Then mercantile failures 
th the | South precipitated a total loss on these notes, and the 
t era began to spread over the country. A large area 
soon ceased t to become a market for the North, cut- 
