Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1882-03-01

one was the sea, and even here the
smoke soon fell so dense that men
could hardly see each others faces and
children died from suffocation.
One woman, who had got separated
from her husband in trying to reach
the sea, had three children with her,
all of whom died, from one cause and
another, during the dark and dreadful
days that followed. She was found
wandering up and down the beach by
a Government ship, which touched
here soon after, and taken to San Fran
cisco, where she died in an asylum for
the insane.
Perhaps the most remarkable sight
here was the bowling mass of wild
beasts driven down to the very narrow
beach by the flames The young set
tier spoken of tells me he was crowded
and pushed about by bears and other
beasts more than once, as he CROPPED
along the sands, with his dying chill
dren in his arms.
Another man, who was fortunate
enough to find boat to escape in,
told me that rats, reptiles, squirrels,
rabbits, deer, elk, and, indeed, all kinds
of beasts or creatures that inhabit the
Oregon forests, GRO @ded together as if
one family and did not attempt to harm
each other.
This man, with his friends in the
boat, fearing they should suffocate if
they remained or have their boat
swamped by the millions of creatures
that crowded into the sea, put out to
little group of islands which lie a
few miles out from the shore; but even
there they found they had been preced-
ed by bear, elk, deer, and other large
quadrupeds He asserts that he sat
side by side with an enormous brown
bear that night, looking back at the
fire, which swept twenty miles up the
down the coast one solid sheet of flame.
He says the beasts howled dolefully
for their lost young, and that even the
sea-cows came up out of the sea on the
little islands and, lifting up their large,
melancholy eyes toward the burning
forest, joined in the universal wall.
Remote from all communication,
this conhagration did not get to the
ears of the world and its story has
never been fully told. | think no one
ever knew how many people perished.
Perhaps not a great many. but that
forest perished utterly. And as you
sail up or down the Oregon coast, all
the way from Coos Bay to Gold River,
you only see standing the storm
whitened trunks of a few of the most
sturdy monarchs, which were not en-
tirely consumed.
Born and brought up in the wilder
ness, am familiar with few facts
about these great forest-fres, the cause
and the remedy, which are not gener-
ally known, and to these facts / beg to
call the attention of Congress and the
country.
/ suppose no one can be found in all
our broad land who has not contribut.
ed something toward the aid of the
Michigan sufferers, even though that
something was only honest pity and a
prayer; but the truth is, this and like
calamities are not to be encompassed
or overcome by the contribution OF
either money, pity or prayers. These
fires will be repeated. Men at the
head of the nation must look at this
matter, study it, take it in hand, and
come to understand it. Millions OF
property has been destroyed ; hundreds
of lives lost A thousand square miles
of the country is in blackness and desc
lation, as if in deepest mourning.
Why :? Is not one to blame ? Must
the land lie still and be consumed
Must the hard-fsted farmer, whose face
is to the earth, and whose eyes are
blinded by dust, and whose intellect is
dulled by toll, be burned out whenever
and wherever the winds happen to
blow or fires to lay hold Of dry and
combustible forest
Not at ALL The remedy or preven
tion is simple and certain, and it rests
with the Government to make practi.
cal application of it; or, should the
Government fail to move in the mat
| ter, the farmers and settlers themselves
may do much to prevent these fires
if they will only follow the practice
and precautions used by the Indians
when they had command of the forests
as shall presently describe
We all know how the country be
comes dulled and Indifferent to a great
calamity az soon as the dead are buried
out of sight and we know how mer
shut their ears, with n slam in youl
face, as it were, after the excitement
is over. A very good man may give
five or fifty dollars to aid the sufferers
as in O case like this, and then button
up his pocket, and, thinking he has
done a very generous thing and all that
can possibly be asked, turn his back on
the whole affair and dismiss it from
his mind
But this is an affair not to be forgot.
ten. Nature will not allow it. If moi
attended to, it will be repeated and re
some day the calamity will be 80 ter
rible that neither contributions Of mon
ey, nor prayers, nor pity can persuade
forgetfulness.
| have waited in vain for some sug
gestion from the thinkers of the lane
and those in authority, by which these
forests, property and human life nigh
not be so fooishly sacrificed but the
press and the people are quietly going
to sleep over the question, as they die
over the terrible calamities in these
same Michigan forests now more thar
ten years ago.
And right here / stop and wonder
how many will remember the fearful
fires in the Michigan forests decade
sinbc The bodies of whole family
found in well here the heaps o
charred bodies found in the woods
fields, and even by the waters edge
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