Governor Cox also sent out appeals for aid to the Governors of all the border States of Ohio, including Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky. Tents and provisions were badly needed, according to the Governor's appeal. After working all night in the Adjutant-General's office in the State House, officers of the Ohio National Guard reported that they had succeeded in assembling 3,500 militiamen, ready for service in the flood districts. Mobilized at all points of the state, companies and regiments of the Ohio military force started at daybreak on Wednesday for the stricken cities and towns as soon as arrangements for their transportation, the most serious problem confronting the militia headquarters, could be arranged. The relief which they carried was held back by the lack of railroad facilities everywhere. THE RELIEF OF THE VICTIMS Howard Elting, president of the Chicago Association of Commerce, telegraphed Governor Cox that citizens of Chicago were raising a relief fund for flood sufferers. "I am pleased to state," the telegram said, "that $100,000 will be placed at the disposal of Ohio through the American Red Cross Society." The Senate passed the Lowry Bill making appropriation for the relief of the flood sufferers, but increased the amount to $500,000. The action was taken in response to the following message from the Governor: "The flood disaster that has befallen our state is of such magnitude in loss of life and human suffering that I respectfully urge upon your honorable body the importance and propriety of making an appropriation for the succor of those in distress. "May I further suggest that it be of such size and made with such dispatch as to reflect the great heart and resource of our commonwealth?" THE EXTENT OF THE DISASTER On Thursday it was apparent that the part of the city between Central and Sandusky Avenues was almost wiped out, and estimates of the death toll of the flood in this city ran into the hundreds. It was not until Thursday when the waters began to recede, and after two nights of horror, during which hundreds of people clung to the housetops, while others sought safety in trees, that the fact dawned upon the inhabitants that their city had been visited by as great a calamity perhaps as that which had fallen upon the Miami Valley. The bodies of 200 persons lay huddled in the United Brethren Church on Avondale Avenue, according to O. H. Ossman, an undertaker, who explored the flood district in a rowboat. He said this report was made to him by a man who said he had been able to reach the building and look through the windows. Police who sought to confirm the story were unable to reach the church because of the current. Ossman said nineteen bodies had been taken to his undertaking rooms and that he has been asked to be prepared to care for sixty-nine other bodies. He said he counted fully two hundred bodies in wreckage on West Park Avenue.