Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-06-20
THE WORLDS FLOODS
Vast foundations That Have Occurred
from the Beginning Of,RecOrded
History.
Awful CatastrOphes Which BIotted
Out Great Portions of the Earth's
Surface.
The United States is 8 nation.

The United States is nation.
At no other time is the fact more
strikingly shown than when q great ca
lamity befalls any part of it. The
81, 100000 hearts beat with one throb of
ympathy. If one member suffers ali
members suffer. But when we stand ap-
palled &C such dire disasters as the one
| whioh has turned the beautiful and fertile
region of the Conemaugh iRto valley of
death and are 10th to believe it in eli it's
dreadful and heartrending details, while
We 1uvOluntarily ask ourselves, "Ceu it be
sof" history tells Us that others have suf
fered in equal and greater measure.
Numerous are the traditions coming TO
US from prehistoric periods concerning
great floods. Everywhere in the annals
of the various nations We meet with SINH.
lar accounts as that contained in the bible.
1t is therefore most likely that at q GER
tain time, several thousand years before
the beginning of our era, extraordinary
floods occurred in various portions of the
earth simultaneously.
Strabo and Diodorus speak of gigantic
| spring floods having broken upon Egypt
at an early date, and Piinius and Taoitus
| report euoh of the north of Europe about
the time of Christ, which III terrible mag
nitude and iestructiveness had not their
| equal. The oldest reports concern the
floods In the region of the Red sea, along
| the peninsula of Suez. Strabo chronicles
the destruction of many armies of the
ancients in this dangerous locality, and
Diodorus relates the drowning of part
of the hosts of Artaxerxes at the same
place. Here, too, the passage of the
Jews through the Red sea and the destruc-
ton of the Pharaonic hosts find the ex-
| PLANTATION.
| Reliable accounts of disasters by water
| begin century or two before our era.
| They treat4 until comparatively recently
| almost exclusively of floods in Europe,
owing to the imperfect connection be-
tween the nation 5 up to our own times.
About the year 150 b. @. the powerful
nation of the Celts, after having suffered
for long time great losses in posses
sions and lives, were forced by continued
destructive hoods TO forsake their abodes
| along the shores of the western ocean
and emigrate to Italy, the upper Rhine,
and the Danube. Likewise about the
year 113 B. @. Teutonic tribes were driven
further south from the northern settle
ments by like causes. Among the older
towns of the world the Eternal city, Rome,
suffered frequently and extremely from
foundations of the Tiber, which to fill the
cup of the suffering of the people were
generality accompanied by death and
pestilence. Notable among these floods
at Rome are those of the years A, 81, %,
~, and Ii B. c., and 5, Is, &c. 81, So and
20 A. ID. In the year the city was nav
1gated by boats for over week and q
large number of buildings were destroyed
by the flood, as were also hundreds of
lives.
In the year so A. D. great floods inun-
dated many miles of territory along the
French and English coast. Historically
remarkable is the disastrous inundation
caused by the Rhine in consequence of
destruction of the dam of Drusus at Nijm-
wagon, in the Netherlands, by the rebel
lious Batavians under Civilis to stop the
advance of the much feared Romans. This
famous dam had been commenced by
DrOsus Germanicus In the year B. O.,
but had only been finished twelve years at
the time of this catastrophe.
A. D. ITO the fertile table-land of March
in Arabia was turned into a permanent
desert by the breaking of a dam and the
inhabitants were forced to enigrate. in
liza large tracts of Italy and adjoining
336 saw the greater portion of Germany
inundated. In 444 the city of Is, on the
bank of the bay of Douarney, France,
formerly quite famous, was swallowed by
the floods. In 587 and $50 Germany suf-
fered immense losses by water. The
Rhine, having always been a source of
great and frequent disasters, again did
enormous damage in 694. Ninety years
a arla
one of his victorious marches Ey the
waters filling the lowlands everywhere.
In 1913 the sea flooded the whole of east
Frisia. The year 800 Witnessed the swat
Lowing up of a very large part of Helgo-I
land by the Unsuitable element. In 815
Rhine by another overflow did more dam
age than ever before, and in 886 its waters
devastated all the adjoining regions along
its entire course. During the ninth CEN
tury the English coasts suffered terribly
from floods, and in 986 all the rivers of
central Europe overlooked their banks and
caused great loss.
The eleventh century had no less than
forty-seven great floods. At one time
fully 125 geogra phical square miles of the
Netherlands were laid waste. At this time
there also disappeared number of the
the Baltic, making the entire number
swallowed up by floods on the same coast
from the time of the Roman occupation
to the close of the eleventh century, fifteen
all large islands.
The loss in human lives through floods
during the century alone was over 1000
600. Some of the most disastrous floods
during that period were that OF 1015, put
ting large part of Holland under water
and taking more than three years until
its last traces had finally Disappeared;
then the overflow of the Elbe and Weser,
destroying entire towns along their banks;
further the indndation of the Pomeran-
ian coasts in 1044, reaching in places as
much as twelve geographical miles into |
the country, and then the fearful foods |
in the Alpine regions and Germany in |
1860.
In 1106 the old and important town of |
Malsmocce, near Venice, was devoured by |
the Adriatic sea. Other great floods |
through overhows of the Rhine and Dan
ube occurred in 1924, 1150, and 1852, when |
large tracts of fruitful land were devas-
tated and buildings and numerous lives
were destroyed in towns. The year 1852
was another sad one for tde north of |
Europe through its repeated disastrous
foods, taking the lives OF thousands Of
human beings and cattle. Again between
the years of 1212-1324 there were hun
dreds Of towns and villages destroyed by
foods in that part Of the world, and in
1918 single catastrophe of this kind
killed 10000 human beings at Nordstrend
slone. About Christmas, 1877, the city
OF forum and fifty smaller towns around