INUNDATIONS, floods caused usually by the overflow of a river or by the ocean, some times by the giving way of a dam or other barrier. Since the dawn of history no century and scarcely any large country have been free from floods. The region of the Nile in Egypt, and of the Hoang-Ho, or Yellow River, in China, have suffered most from this cause; and the Nile stands alone as at once a terribly de structive and a beneficial agent, for its over flows have not only irrigated the surrounding dry country, but greatly enriched it by spreading over it the fertilizing sediment collected and conveyed in the stream. In recent years. sani tary science has greatly reduced the danger of pestilence that always follows a great flood, and that formerly was often as destructive of human life as the floods themselves.
The following are some of the most noted inundations of record: 245, the sea swept over Lincolnshire, England, and submerged thou sands of acres; 353, a flood in Cheshire, Eng land, destroyed 3,000 lives and a great number of cattle; 738, an overflow of the Clyde drowned 400 families in Glasgow ; 1014, a num ber of seaport towns in England and the Neth erlands were destroyed; 1100, the coast of Kent, England, was deluged and the Goodwin. Sands bank formed by the sea; 1108, Flanders was submerged by the sea and the town and harbor of Ostend completely covered; 1134, a large part of Flanders was again submerged; 1164, a considerable part of the coast of Fries land was swallowed up; 1170, many miles of country in the northern part of Holland were engulfed with great loss of life; 1219, the break ing of the dykes along the Znyder Zee caused great destruction of life and property; 1277, 44 villages in Holland were destroyed ; 1282, 72 towns and villages in Holland were submerged and 100,000 persons drowned; 1287, another breaking of the dykes caused a loss of 80,000 lives; 1362, 30 villages on the coast of Nord strand were destroyed; 1377, 50 miles of terri tory and 72 villages in Holland were swept away and the course of the Maas and Rhine rivers changed; 1421, by the breaking of the dyke at Dort 10,000 people in the town and 100,000 in the vicinity were drowned; 1530, a general failure of the dykes caused an over flow of the low lands and a loss of life esti mated at 400,000, and of property in proportion; 1570, Antwerp, Bruges, Hamburg, Rotterdam and Amsterdam were submerged and 30,000 in habitants drowned; 1617, 50,000 persons were drowned in a flood in Catalonia, Spain; 1634, a flood swept away several villages on the Nordland coast of Denmark, and drowned 11, 000 people and 66,300 cattle and 10,800 people and 90,000 cattle were drowned at Hamburg, Bremen and Oldenburg; 1717, the flood along the entire north coast and in Eng land totally destroyed 5,000 dwellings, and 3,500 partially a 1787, mountain torrents drowned 2,000 persons in Navarre, France; 1811, 24 villages near Presburg and nearly all their inhabitants were swept away by an overflow of the Danube, 1813, large provinces of Austria and Poland were flooded and lives lost (6,000 in Silesia, and 4,000 in Poland, and 2,000 Turkish soldiers on an island near Widdin were drowned by a sudden overflow of the Danube 1816, the overflow of the Vistula River laid 119 German villages under water, and caused great loss of life and property; 1829, the same river broke through the dyke at Dantzig, drowned a large number of people and destroyed 4,000 dwellings and 10,000 cattle; 1830, an overflow of the Danube at Vienna flooded the homes of 50,000 inhabitants; 1833, 10,000 horses were swept away, and 1,000 persons drowned in Canton alone during the great October flood; 1840, a rising of the Saone river, France, and the bursting of its banks, caused 60,000 acres to be submerged and many houses destroyed in Lyons, Avignon, La Guillotiere, Voise, Mar seilles and Nismes; 1846, by the Loire flooding the centre and southwest of France, $20,000,000 damage was sustained; 1849, 160 squares and 1,600 buildings were flooded in New Orleans; 1852, the Hoang-Ho, in China, burst its banks, cut a new bed into the Gulf 'of Pechili and wrought tremendous losses; 1855, Hamburg was half submerged and suffered enormous property damage; 1861, Bengal, India, suffered great loss of life and property by a deluge in its most fertile districts, and famine and pestilence fol lowed i 1866, the north of England was visited extensively by floods; 1870, Rome, Italy, suf fered great loss; 1874, the bursting of a badly constructed dam caused the destruction of sev eral villages in the valley of Mill River, Mass.,
and loss of 144 lives; 1876, destructive flood occurred in France and Holland; 1882, many persons were drowned and much property de stroyed by overflows in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys; 1887, the Hoang-Ho, China, broke its banks, deserted its natural bed, spread over a thickly populated plain, cut an entirely new road to the sea, washed away 300 villages, and submerged the lands around 300 more between Cheng-Chou and Chung-mon, submerged more than 1,500 villages south of ICaifeng, rendered 2,000,000 people homeless and caused a loss of life estimated from 1,500,000 to 7,000,000; 1889 (31 May), the giving way of the Stony Creek dam in the Conemaugh Valley, Pa., caused the total destruction of the city of Johnstown and several neighboring towns, and caused a loss of about 5,000 lives and more than $20,000,000 of property. The sameyear was marked by ve disastrous floods in China and Japan. In the levees of the Mississippi gave way in many places, and the waters flooded large areas of land in Mississippi and Louisiana. The worst crevasse was caused by the giving way of the Morgansea, near Bayou Sara. In 1903 there was a great rising of the Kansas, Missouri, Mississippi and Des Moines rivers; several large cities, including Kansas City, Des Moines and Topeka, were inundated, the loss of life was over 300, and of property about $10,000, 000. In the same year Paterson, N. J., and the entire Passaic Valley were flooded, about $3,000,000 damage inundated done in Paterson. In 1912 the Mississippi nundated 15,000 square miles with a damage to property estimated at $45,000,000. In March-April 1913 a most de structive flood occurred in the Ohio Valley, due to an excessive rainfall within a short period, 400 lives were lost and the damage to prop erty reached $180,000,000. The city of Dayton was almost destroyed. Consult Stoney, 'Ex traordinary Floods in Southern India) (Lon don 1898) • Williams, 'Effects of Land Floods in a Tidal (London 1891) ; Valles, 'Etudes sur les inondations, leurs causes et leurs effets> (Paris 1857); Mississippi River Com mission