and thus makes Lake McDonald, twenty-five miles long. A heavy storm and flood in the spring of 1900 broke this dam and let out the lake, causing great loss of life and damage in the city. Eighty miles southwest of Austin is the ancient city of San Antonio, known as the "cradle of Texas liberty," a Spanish town upon the San Antonio and San Pedro Rivers, small streams dividing it into irregular parts, the former receiving the latter and flowing into the Gulf at Espiritu Santo Bay. There are sixty thousand people in San Antonio, of many races, chiefly Americans, Mexicans and Germans, and it is a leading wool, cattle, horse, mule and cotton market. The Spaniards penetrated into this region in the latter part of the seventeenth century and established one of their usual joint religious-military posts among the Indians upon the plan of colonization then in vogue. The Presidio or military station was called San Antonio de Bexar, while during the early eighteenth century there were founded various religious Missions, the chief being by Franciscan monks, the Mission of San Antonio de Valero. There are four other Missions in and near the city, dating from that early period, their ancient buildings partly restored, but some of them also considerably in ruins. To the eastward of San Antonio River was built in a grove of the alamo or cottonwood trees in 1744 a low, strong, thick-walled church of adobé for the Franciscans, called from its surroundings the Alamo. When the Texans revolted, they held San Antonio as an outpost with a garrison of one hundred and forty-five men, commanded by Colonel James Bowie, the famous duellist and inventor of the "bowie knife," who was originally from Louisiana. Bowie fell ill of typhoid fever, and Colonel Travis took command. Among the garrison was the eccentric David Crockett of Tennessee, who had been a member of Congress, and joined them as a volunteer. General Santa Anna marched with a large Mexican army against them, arriving February 22, 1836, and the little garrison retired within the church of the Alamo, which they defended against four thousand Mexicans in a twelve days' siege. The final assault was made at daylight, March 6th, a lodgment was effected, and until nine o'clock a battle was fought from room to room within the church, a desperate hand-to-hand conflict at short range, and not ceasing until every Texan was killed; but this was not until two thousand three hundred Mexicans had fallen. Upon the memorial of this terrible contest, at the Texas State Capital, is the inscription: "Thermopylæ had her messenger of defeat, but the Alamo had none." This butchery caused a thrill of horror throughout the United States. "Remember the Alamo" became the watchword of the Texans, much aid was sent them, and the succor, coming from the desire to avenge the massacre, contributed largely to their ability to defeat the Mexicans in the subsequent decisive battle on San Jacinto River,