June 1, 1889, when the town was swept by one of the most appalling cataclysms that has found a record in history. On that ever-memorable date the immense reservoir away up in the Alleghenies that held the waters of South Fork, burst without warning and rushed down, a very devastating monster, into the smiling valley, which it overwhelmed with a flood forty feet deep. The result is too awful to dwell upon; two thousand people were whirled to their death, and the city was carried from its foundations, with a loss of $10,000,000. But Johnstown has recovered from the terrible blow which it received on that opening day of summer, and the blazing forge of the rolling-mills has again brought prosperity to the place. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: THE HORSESHOE CURVE AT KITTANNING, PENNSYLVANIA.—This point is in one of the finest scenic localities of the great State of Pennsylvania, the rolling and broken hills rising in many places almost to the dignity of mountains. The valleys and sloping sides of the hills are covered with rich and well-cultivated farms, adorned with elegant farm-houses, barns and other improvements, superior to almost any of the other rural districts of our country. It is a region also famous for fruits of various kinds, and in the early spring the whole country seems abloom with the apple, peach, pear and other fragrant and familiar blossoms. ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------