The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1874-05-26
THE DEsOLATED VALLEY
SCENES AND INCIDENTS.

SCENES AND INCIDENTS.
THE Loss-wHRRE THE FAULT LAY-PRE-
SENTIMENTS OF Do)M-PERILoUs ESCAPES.
Specials to the Chicago Tribune tell many
interesting facts relative to the Mill river
calamity: 1t should be borne in mind that
all losses are total. Insurance against fires
does not repay the damage of flood, and the
salvage from the mass of valuable machinery
and costly stores and manufactured
products will be practically nothing. All
day long this CHASTITY wound in one OF
the fairest valleys of Massachusetts
has been explored and probed by
searchers looking for the bodies
of the lost and loved. A cold, driz-
xling rain has been falling, yet, in spite OF
this and the deep mud, hundreds OF vehicles
and thousands of spectators have visited and
traversed the scene of devastation. This af-
ternoon The Canal railroad resumed trains to
Williamsburg, and so did much to relieve the
demand for transportation. In the wake OF
the disaster came the harpies in teams, and
the streets this afternoon were invested with
numbers of the thieves, loafers, and bard
characters of the lower manufacturing vii
lagos, and from cities as tar away as Boston
and New York. Before noon force ofspecial
police was and promptly sent from
Springfield, and later in the day the local
pdDy Oh Ulll1Ild was cdll6O out, d0u the
Peabody Guards, one OF the Springfield
companies, called on. These measures of
self-protection were taken thoroughly, and
will be further increased tomorrow should
circumstances require. Already the ex-
humation and interment of the dead have
been going on, and large force will be re-
quired for weeks to thoroughly search the
debris covering the meadows. So init
mately, however. were the villages known
to each other, that it will not be necessary
to prosecute the work much longer. Nearly
all the missing are accounted for.
THE SUPPLY OF coFFINs
was exhausted early in the day, and two bod
les, as they were found, were laid in an open
express wagon, under a tattered ooverlet,
and so carried through the streets of
Williamsburg. Eighteen persons are miss
ing from two houses which stood side by
side at Leeds. Upon the question of the
construction of the reservoir, public opinion
is divided. The interests of the capitalists
and manufacturers are so thoroughly mingled
and divided among all classes of the people
that it is not easy to obtain a competent and
impartial opinion. In some influential
quarters there is disposition 70 excuse the
construction of the reservoir, and justi-
fly the method and manner of its building.
Though preparations for rebuilding some of
gun, two of the thriving villages of last
week are wiped out TOR generation to come.
Leeds is obliterated, and Mr.. Warner, pro-
prietor OF the button factory, says he shall
not rebuild there as he can hire power
cheaper elsewhere. Neither will Mr.. Skin
ner rebuild his silk factory on its old site,
though it may be restored in another To-
A. A. Low & Co., of New
York, and other capitalists of the city, arc
interested in this enterprise. Hayden.
Moore q Co. are rebuilding already, and
Williamsburg will soon gather it's resources
and restore some OF its waste places. E. G.
Gardiner. civil engineer. OF Springfield. who
was employed as surveyor durlng the
construction of the reservoir, told a
reporter of the Republican to-day that no
engineers plan was accepted fully in the
construction, and that the engineer in charge
was entirely subservient to
COMMITTEE OF THE COMPANY
owning the water power, who frequently
modified his suggestions to meet their no.
tons of economy. Some of the work was
done without the oversight of an engineer
at all. In the matter of the much-talked-of
stone wall in the center of the embankment,
the contract did not call for eight feet in
thickness at the base, but thickness of be-
tween five aud six feet. which was what the
Republicans reporter found to be the
actual fact. This notion is strengthened
from memory of the singular wording of
the specification, which begun by providing
that the wall should be two feet thick at the
top, increasing in thickness to certain
width at the base, rather than vice versa as
is usual. Still this central wall was consid-
cred of little moment by the building COM
mittee. The main or entire strength OF the
dam was supposed to be in the thick earthen
bank, and one of the committee even
soberly suggested that an eight-inch wall
of brick would answer every purpose. The
idea was that the principal Office of this
wall was mainly to prevent the burrowing
of water animals through it, or it's perfora-
ton by sticks and timbers. A. ID. Briggs, OF
Springfield, state railroad commissioner,
who was the first to make a bid for the con-
struction of the reservoir, was also inter-
viewed. His estimate proposed to make the
cost OF the work between 500, 600 and 500 900,
a sum so much larger than the company
were willing to pay that his plan was imme-
diately rejected, and he had no further
interest in the affair. Mr.. Briggs places al
responsibility on the shoulders of the
building committee. AS to the theory that
the masonry in the heart of the embark
ment was a matter of secondary import
ance, that, Mr.: Briggs said, depended on car,
cumstances The earthwork, If honest and
fiawless, would, accidents aside, probably
have furnished
THE REQUISITE STRENGTH.
But there was always chance for its perfora-
ton from one cause or another, and the
object of central wall, was that of a break
water. This wall, if built of good material
and fairly entrenched in hard-pan, should
be an element of strength. If, however,
loosely constructed and not deeply laid
beneath the surface, then there was the prob
ability of the water ultimately insinuating
its way beneath it, and a. the volume in
creased and the spaces widened, this wall
would boone worse than useless. To one Of