The Native Virginian

THE POWER OF RAGING WATER.

A correspondent of the New York Journal of Commerce, writing from near Ellicott City, Md., on Saturday evening, gives a graphic account of the flood. We quote as follows:

At Ellicott City and vicinity the destruction of immense flour mills, built of granite was almost complete—of some not a vestige remained. An entire range of brick, stone, and frame stores and dwelling houses, comprising some thirty or forty separate dwellings in one line, were swept away with no trace of foundation left. In some places the tops of huge boilers and steam engines could be seen projecting from masses of stone in the bed of the river. Ponderous iron rails were floated on the top of huge rocks. In many places the railroad is covered with some six or eight feet of stone and rocks, while in others the railway is entirely swept off, in some places hanging over precipices. The Western bound train had to be suddenly abandoned by its passengers two miles west of this place, and in a few moments after the train with its heavy engine was borne along by the current until arrested by a tree. The engine had been reversed for an attempted return to Ellicott City, but the rush of waters compelled the passengers to rush for the hills over a bridge hastily thrown from a platform of the cars, abandoning their baggage which was soon submerged. This afternoon an effort was being made by a large force to remove the train to Ellicott city, two miles distant. Between this and Ellicott City not one telegraph post is standing.

I cannot attempt to give details of losses, I found my own beautiful place almost ruined. Hundreds of magnificent trees which fringed the banks of the river were swept wildly away. Where on Monday I left a thriving garden was a vast bed of white sand, with immense forest trees lying here and there, which had been brought down by the flood. An immense oak had sped between a large weeping willow and locust tree, and tore down the supports of my piazza, and lies amid the ruin it occasioned. My family had scarcely left the house amid terrible thunder and lightning and a furious rain before the water was several feet deep in the second story. Heaps of sand high as the fence surrounded the dwelling to the destruction of everything attractive. My fences, many thousand feet of lumber, my most valuable trees, and ten tons of bone dust have been carried to tide-water. My pecuniary loss is insignificant compared with that of others. Numerous attractions are gone forever. My house is a century old and was never before surrounded by water. It stood twelve feet in water yesterday. The fine residence of Mr. Gray, at the Alberton mills, one mile above me is nearly ruined, and the family were for an hour in imminent danger, his loss will exceed $150,000. Heavier losses occurred below, but they are generally of companies of stockholders.