Connecticut western news., 1884-02-27
CANAAN CONN., WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27 1884.
HOW A FLOOD BEHAVES.
low IL is Started and How It Does Such
 Great Damage.
From the New York Hour.l

From the New York Hour.l
 Only few warm winter days are necessary to change @ placid Western stream, across which a man with leg boots might safely wade, into a river deep enough to float the Great Eastern. When the water exceeds the containing capacity of it's banks, then comes the flood, which in the West mems an over- flow. Embankments, called dykes or levees, protect the cities and large towns that are not on high ground, but farming land is generally at the mercy of high water, and so are the smaller towns.
 The overflow is never 8 slow and even distribution of the water over large area. It begins at points where the river banks are low, perhaps for only few yards. Through such Impressions the water, forced by the weight of the i'm mense quantity behind it, pours with great rapidity and consequently with much erosive force. An Eastern man travelling in the West and hearing that the river is overhowing at designated point is greatly disappointed when he beholds the alleged flood from little distance away. for he sees nothing but a small area of water with Q barely per ceptible ripple md apparently no depth to speak of Should he try to wade through it, however, even if the water is not more than knee deep, he will find the center of the new stream, in line with the point of overflow, as rapid and rest less as Q mountain torrent. He will be lucky to escape without the ground being at times torn from under his feet, for such an overflow generally cuts chan nel for itself in wonderful haste, tossing the soil aside and tearing up the subsoil like an enormous blow. Wherever the water finds slight Impressions of the soil it follows them, tearing additional chan nels for itself, and deepening into gullies what were the lower portions of barely perceptible undulations.
 While the water is in motion a man can barely make his way through it when the depth has reached one foot j; when the depth increases to two feet, horses and cattle are helpless, and when thrown down, as they soon are, they sell dom regain their feet; they are tossed about until, unless stranded upon a ridge, they become bruised and ex- hausted then they drown. Overflow ing water only two feet deep will take up fences, logs, wagons, and everything else in it's path that will float. Instead of distributing these over the area of spreading water, it masses them in the oUtItIu vG .r.Pid Avr, swift o.srHeraIS "l- ways do with drift When this mass strikes house or barn that happens to be in its course, that structure IS doomed, for no building can withstand the mo- mentum of tons of solid material that is being pushed along at the rate of seven or eight miles hour.
 When the river falls, and all water that can make it's way back to the river has disappeared, there still remain large flooded areas wherever the ground is low, and the soil under them is useless until evaporation has done it's slow work. Ground high enough to be drained of water is almost equally unavailable, for the main current of inflow and it's num- berless subdivisions have made gullies and ridges everywhere, and destroyed whatever crops-generally winter wheat have been planted. The period of evaporation is also one of malaria, ty- phoid fever, and dysentery. Communi- cation by roads is interrupted for long time, for the flood has carried away all the small bridges, so creek three feet wide is impossible except on horseback. Cattle have not only been destroyed, but their remains lie about everywhere to pollute the atmosphere. The farmers losses and misfortunes make him unable to get credit, or pay for what he has all ready bought. For the same reason taxes remain unpaid, the schools lan- guish, public improvements cease, and the maintenance of those already made is arrested. Every mans neighbor is as badly off as himself, so the distressed farmer cannot Give upon his friends" | while trying to get upon his feet