At daybreak the wide waste of waters was only bounded by the rising grounds on the south and west: whilst, towards the north and east, the watery world swept off, uninterruptedly, into the expanding Frith and the German Ocean. The embankments appeared to have everywhere given way; and the water that covered the fields, lately so beautiful with yellow wheat, green turnips, and other crops, rushed with so great impetuosity in certain directions, as to form numerous currents, setting furiously through the quieter parts of the inundation, and elevated several feet above it. As far as the eye could reach the brownish-yellow moving mass of water was covered with trees and wreck of every description, whirled along with a force that shivered many of them against unseen obstacles. There was a sublimity in the mighty power and deafening roar of waters, heightened by the livid hue of the clouds, the sheeting rain, the howling of the wind, the lowing of the cattle, and the screaming and wailing of the assembled people, that riveted the attention. In the distance could dimly be descried the far-off dwelling of poor Funns, its roof rising like a speck above the flood, that had evidently made a breach in one of its ends. A family named Kerr, who had refused to quit their dwelling, were the objects of great anxiety. Their son, Alexander Kerr, had been watching all night, and in the morning was still gazing towards the spot in an agony of mind, and weeping for the apparently inevitable destruction of his parents. His master tried to comfort him; but even whilst he spoke, the whole gable of Kerr’s dwelling, which was the uppermost of three houses composing the row, gave way, and fell into the raging current. Dr. Brands, who was looking on intently at the time, with a telescope, observed a hand thrust through the thatch of the central house. It worked busily, as if in despair of life; a head soon appeared; and at last Kerr’s whole frame emerged on the roof, and he began to exert himself in drawing out his wife and niece. Clinging to one another, they crawled along the roof towards the northern chimney. The sight was torturing. Kerr, a little a-head of the others, was seen tearing off the thatch, as if trying to force an entrance through the roof, whilst the miserable women clung to the house-top, the blankets which they had used to shelter them almost torn from them by the violence of the hurricane; and the roof they had left yielding and tottering, fell into the sweeping flood. The thatch resisted all Kerr’s efforts; and he was now seen to let himself drop from the eaves on a small speck of ground higher than the rest, close to the foundation of the back wall of the buildings, which was next the spectators. There he finally succeeded in bringing down the women; and there he and they stood, without even room to move. [Picture: Perilous situation of Kerr and his family]