The Dickinson press. (Dickinson, Stark County, D.T. [i.e. N.D.]) 1883-1927, 1889-07-20
THE OLD WORLDS FLOODS.
WILD WATERS HAVOC THROUGH
SEVENTEEN CENTURIES.
Rome q Great Sufferer from the Tiber's
Overflows-A Million Lives Lost in the
Eleventh Century---Thc Rhine and the
Danube Have Also Added to the Horrors.

Eleventh Century-The Rhine and the
Danube Have Also Added to the Horrors.
About the year lso B. c. the powerful na-
lion of the Celts, after having suffered for
long time great losses in possessions and lives,
were forced by continued destructive floods
to forsake their abodes along the shores of the
western ocean and emigrate to Italy, the up
per Rhine and the Danube. Likewise about
the year lis B. c. several Tcutonic tribes were
driven further south from the northern set
Elements by like causes. Among the older
towns of tho world the eternal CITY, Rome,
suffered frequently and extremely from i'll
undations of the Tiber, which to fill the cup
of the sutfcrings of the people were generally
accompanied by dcarth and pcstience. Nota-
BILE among these floods at Rome are those of
the years "A, 81, %, 22 and l3 B. e., and 5, 15
Sc, 81, 60 and 20 a. D. In the year 5 the
city was navigated by boats for over week
and large number of buildings were de-
stroyed by the food, us were also hundreds of
lives.
GERMANY INUNDATED
\. d. 10 the fertile table land of March in
Arabia was turned into permanent desert
by tho breaking of dam and the inlli,b-
tracts of Italy and adjoining countries were
under water. The year 3G6 saw the greater
portion of Germany inundated In 444 the
city of Is, on the bank of the bay of Doua1-
ney, France, formerly quite famous, was
swallowed by the foods In 5s7 and 500
Germany suffered immense losses by water
The Rhine, having always been Il source of
great and frequent disaster, again did enor-
nous damage in G4 Ninety years after
even Charlemasne was stopped on one of his
victorious marches by the waters filling the
lowlands everywhere In 19i the sea flooded
the whole of East Frisia. The Year 500 wit
messed the swallowing up Of very largo
part of Helgoland by the Unsuitable element
In Sl5 the Rhine by another overflow did
more damage than ever before, and i'll $50 its
waters devastated all the adjoining regions
along its entire course. During the Ninth
century the English coasts suffered terribly
from floods, and in oSt all the rivers of cen
trail Europe ovcrhowcd their banks and
caused great loss.
The Eleventh century had no less than for
ty-sevcn great floods. AT one time fully 12l
geographical square miles of the Netherlands
were laid waste At this time there also dis
appeared number of the larger islands near
the southwest coast of the Baltic, making the
entire number swallowed up by floods on the
same coast from the time of the Roman occu-
| patton to the close of the Eleventh century,
| fiftccn--all large islands.
The loss in human lives through floods dur.
ing that century alone was over 100000
Some of the most disastrous floods during
| that period We're that of 1918, putting large
| part of Holland under water and taking mcrc
| than three years until its last traces had
finally dis;,ppeared; then the overflow of til,
Eibe and Wcser destroying entire towns
along their banks; further, the iuundation OF
| the Poneranian coasts i'll 1044, reaching in
| places as much as twelve geographical miles
into the country, and then the fearful flood:
i'll the AL line regions and Germany in 1860.
In 1l06 the old and important town of Ma
lamocca near Venice, was Ievourcd by tho
Adriatic sea- Other great floods through
ovcrflows of the Rhine and Danube occurred
in 1924, 1l50 and ll52, when large tracts OF
| fruitful lands were devastated and buildings
and numerous lives We're destroyed in the
towns. The year llG2 was another sad ono
for the north Of Europe through its repeated
disastrous floods, taking the lives of thou.
sands of human beings and cattle. Again
between the years III. and 1924 there wcr,
| hundreds of towns and Villages DESTROYED 10y
floods in that part of the world, and in IBIS !,
single catastrophe of this kind killed l0,00t
human beings at Nortlstrand alone. About
| Christmas, 1877, the city of forum and fft,
smaller towns around he mouth of the Elm:
| sank into the sea.