The South Western

A Steamboat Fire at St. Louis.—A St. Louis dispatch of the 7th gives the following account of another great fire at that place:

Another destructive conflagration among steamboats occurred this morning, which resulted in the reduction of five elegant steamers to as many charred and smoking hulls. The fire broke out between 4 and 5 o'clock on the Nevada, lying at the levee. When first discovered it was burning on the starboard side of the stern of that boat. Whence it came or how it was kindled is at present unknown, as there had been nothing legitimate going on to originate it. The most intelligent opinion is that it was kindled by an incendiary. The watchman of the Nevada was first to discover the fire, and immediately gave the alarm as extensively as he could, but it was nearly half an hour before the engines could arrive on the spot and get to work. In the meantime the flames swept through the light frame upper works of the doomed boat, gathering strength and fierceness every minute. They spread to the Frank Bates, lying alongside, just below the Nevada, and Effie Deans, lying next below the Frank Bates, and to the Amazon and Fanny Ogden, lying just above. All these boats except the Fanny Ogden, burned to the water's edge. The Fanny Ogden has the whole of the upper works of her stern burned off, and also the stern portion of her hull. She is nearly an entire wreck.