﻿A Brief Sketch of the Floods in the Ohio River. 



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gealed moisture spread over the* Ohio Valley was very great. On Sunday, 

 December 23, a warm wave with rain from the Gulf came. Everything 

 was favorable for a great flood. Had that warm wave lasted long enough 

 and continued to pour its rain down upon the snow, a flood would have 

 resulted. Luckily a cold wave from the Northwest came, predominated 

 over the warm one from the Grulf, precipitated its moisture as snow, froze 

 up the rain, stopped the melting, and the danger for that time passed. 



This very snow formed the groundwork of our present flood. Through- 

 out January more snow was added, with only slight thaws between, until 

 over three feet of snow had fallen, and, for the most part, accumulated 

 over the whole Ohio Valley. At last the warm storms from the Gulf and 

 Southwest, superabundantly laden with rain, came. Day after day they 

 rained out their warm torrents upon the snow accumulation, until many 

 inches of rain were added to the melting snow. In vain did we look for 

 our cold storm to call halt upon the gush of rain and melting snow. Strong- 

 were the hopes for a cold snap to stop with its icy fingers the dangers with 

 which we were threatened. For fourteen days no sun cast a gleam of 

 cheer. All the conditions^were here ; excessive rainfall, accumulated snow 

 from cold waves, and continued warm air from the South, and the flood 

 came, as I believe, more as a result of the combination of these conditions 

 than anything else. 



A recent number of Puck, catching the popular craze, has illustrated 

 the forestry idea with peculiar vividness. Let us cast a glance for a 

 moment at this idea. It has been the misfortune of the writer to witness 

 a great overflow in the Rhine in 1882, and yet there is no country of the 

 globe so particular or so scientific about public forests and forestry as 

 Germany, where a certain area is set apart, proportioned upon the best 

 known principles of forestry, and forests are cultivated thereon; and if, by 

 chance of nature, a tree is blown down or rots away, its place is immedi- 

 ately supplied by another young one. In 1882, the writer also saw one of 

 the greatest overflows in the history of the Danube River. Its headwaters 

 are in Germany, and Austria is about as particular as'G-ermany about this 

 forestry craze. The Po, also, in Italy, overflowed and inundated the sur- 

 rounding country. Yet forestry prevails there, if not as perfect as in Ger- 

 many, at least with as good results. The overflows of all those rivers were 

 directly dependent upon the amount of moisture precipitated, and not 

 upon the absence or presence of the forests or their attending influences. 



Not only have forests not availed anything practical for the floods in 

 these ' countries, but even the fluctuations of the Rhine and Rhone are 

 xemoved beyond their influence, and come in summer and go in winter from 



