Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1889-06-07
THE GREAT FUNERAL pYRE.

THE GREAT FUNERAL PYRE.
Nothing Has Ever Equallad the Scene
| Above the Pennsylvania Railroad
| Bridge.
JoHNsTowN, June 3.-The magnitude
of the horror increases with the hours.
It is believed that not less than 1900 of
the drowned found lodgment beneath
the mass of debris in the triangle of
ground that the Conemaugh cut out of
the bank between the river proper and
the Pennsylvania railroad bridge.
There was the greatest funeral pyre in
history. The victims were not upon it,
but were parts of its horrible constitu-
tion. Whole houses were washed into
the apex of the triangle. Hen coops,
pig stys, stables, the refuse of the gut
ter, the contents of sewers, whole luu-
Der yards, boom upon boom of logs, COM
posed the mass. When the upsetting of
cook stove ignited the mass and the
work of cremation began, it was costly
sacrifice to the demon of the food, be-
ing
A Literal Breast of Fire.
The smoke arose in huge funnel
shaped cloud, and at times it changed to
the form of an hour glass. At night the
flames would light up this misty rem
nant of mortality. The effect upon the
living, ignorant and intelligent, was the
same. That volume of smoke, with its
dual form, produced feeling of awe in
many that was superior in most cases to
that in the awful moment of the storms
here on Friday afternoon. Hundreds
stood for hours regarding the smoke and
wondering if it forbode another vista
tion direr than its predecessor.
The Fire Under Control.
The fire in the drift above the bridge
is under control and is being rapidly
smothered by the Pittsburg firemen, in
charge of the work. About 7 o'clock
a. m. crowd of Battery B boys dis
covered family of five people in the
smoking and burned ruins above the
bridge. They took out father, mother
and three children, all terribly burned
and mutilated. The little girl had one
arm torn off.
RECOVERED 2,2oo BODIES.
| And the Awful List Will Mount up to
Over 5000, Without Doubt.
JOHNsTOwN, Pa, June 4.-The devel-
opments of every hour make it more and
more apparent that the exact number of
lives lost in the Johnstown horror will
never be Known. "All indications point
to the fact that the death list will reach
over 5000 names, and in my opinion the
missing will reach 5000 in NUMBER"
declared Gen. D. H. Hastings last night.
at present there are said to be 1900 re-
covered bodies. The great difficulty ex-
perienced in getting correct list is the
great number of morgues. There is no
central bureau of information, and to
communicate with the different dead
houses is the work of hours. At
o'clock in the evening the 65Oth body
had been received at the Cambria City
Depository for corpses.
Bodies Are as Plentiful as Logs,
only the swirl of the waters put the
bodies under and logs and boards on top
in the general stacking up of the animate
and inanimate. The rigidity of arms,
standing out at right angles to the
boated and bruised bodies, shows that
death in 80 out of 100 cases took place
amid the ruins, that is, after the wreck
of houses had closed over them. Dr.
D. &. Foster, who has been here all day,
is of the opinion that most of the victims
were killed by coming in violent contact
with objects in the river, and not by
drowning.
Three Hundred Mora nfSouvera1
JoHNsTowN, Pa, June 4.-Three hun
dred bodies were discovered during the
afternoon in the sand at Kernville, near
the mouth of Sandy Greek. There were
no coffins there at the time and the
bodies had to be laid on the ground
Most of the rescuing party have been up
for two days, yet they work with
determination that is wonderful. Engine
Company No. Is, of Pittsburg, which is
playing q stream on the fire at the stone
bridge has it now almost extinguished,
and the task of getting at bodies under
the burning debris will soon be COM
lnenced in earnest. Undertaken Flan-
merry states that bodies are coming in the
morgue at the rate of one every three
minutes.
The Yield Of an Acre.
JoHNsTowN, Pa, June "A corn
patch of about all acre in extent at
Nineveh was dug over by a volunteer
force and l39 corpses We're recovered.
The manner in which the ghastly find
was made was purely accidental. 4 man
walking over the field kicked at clump
of MARYLAND: overturned it, uncovered a
woman's face. This indicated a rich
find, and the people around were called
| in to assist with the results above stated.
This increases the list of dead in Nineveh
| to 230. The new dead were found under
about four feet of alluvial deposit.
LATEST LOSS ESTlMASES.