At eight o’clock, work was begun upon the wreck. Guards were stationed about the spot. Planks were placed upon the ice. Men were employed to remove the debris of wood and iron. Boxes were procured, in which to place the dead. A special policeman was stationed at the head of the stairway; no one was permitted to go on the ice, except the workmen, who were engaged in removing the debris.

The mayor of the city was on the ground; the stationing of the police was at his request, but the removal of bodies and the preservation of relics, was in the charge of an official of the road.

The superintendent of bridges and the train-dispatcher, assisted in the work. Even Mr. Collins, himself, the chief engineer, was there, and worked in the water, and forgot himself, in the sympathy he felt. Throughout the day the work continued, and the crowds passed to and fro.

Men were employed who, in long rubber boots and water-proof coats, worked all day long in the ice and snow; it was a difficult and tedious task. The wind blew cold, the water was deep, the beams were heavy, the iron was netted together, and the wreck was imbedded in the stream. The bodies were frozen, they were packed among the debris, and buried in the snow, but they were, by degrees, removed.

The remains of men and women and children, were taken by strangers’ hands, and placed in the rude deposits prepared for the occasion. This was under the idle gaze of many a spectator, who had gathered there. The hands of friends were not there to lift the tender forms, many of these were far away. Those who could have been there, and whose every nerve and fibre cried out for their loved and lost, were detained by the trains in the distant city. It was difficult for even the citizens who were present, to realize what sacredness there was to these precious forms. Death had been robbed of its solemnity, and now it seemed a piece of business, to remove the bodies which had burned. The friends had been purposely kept back, that the revolting spectacle might be kept from their sight, or that some decent disposal might be made before they arrived. These bruised and broken and blackened things, did not seem like human beings, and the sorrowing hearts alone could realize how sacred and precious they were, even in all their deformity. It was well that the shock was spared to many, until the distance could be traversed.

Yet it was an awful, shocking sight, when the removal had been accomplished. It was a horrid thing to take these bodies, in all their deformed and distorted shapes, from their beds of ice and snow and iron and ashes and the coals of wood, but it was still more horrid, to look upon them as they were gathered in that gloomy morgue.

The freight house was turned into the place for the dead; its doors were closed, and the darkness of a winter’s day settled down in that cheerless place; it was cold, and bare and gloomy, a fit place for death.

As the sleds arrived from the deep gorge below, bringing the awful human freight, this large room was nearly filled with the ghastly rows. Thirty-six bodies were arranged, in boxes, in a double line along the sides; a few had been taken out, with their bodies uninjured, except as they had died from the breath of fire. These were placed by themselves upon the floor, and from their very attitude, showed how awful had been their death. They were mostly men. There they lay, with limbs distorted, with hands uplifted, with averted faces, and with all the agonized and awful shapes which death by fire must produce. One had endeavored to throw his coat over his face, and lay with arms and coat above his head, caught by the flames and transfixed in that shape. Another had twisted his neck and face away, until the head rested upon the shoulders and back, and only the burned hair and whiskers could be seen. Another lay with limbs drawn up and body doubled, and yet his graceful shape and form could be read, through the agony of death. Others seemed to have stood, and held up beseeching arms and hands. With some, even the stumps of arms were outstretched, as if in mute appeal. A few were drenched, with their clothing on, but partly burned, as if the water and the fire together conspired for their death. These all impressed the eye, with the agony of death by fire. The fear of such a fate, was that which the survivors felt the most.

The agony, depicted in these few distorted forms and faces, showed how well founded was that fear. But, fortunately, there were but few. Not a dozen bodies were taken out that, to any human appearance, could have lived, if this fire had been kept down. The rest were broken and bruised, or else their bodies had been completely burned.

A more affecting sight was that, of those who were placed in the boxes, broken and bruised, as they were, in every limb. The boxes could not contain them, as their clothes were stiffened by the water and ice and snow. Those, too, whose clothes had been burned away, were so distorted in limb and body that no box could hold their forms.

Though dead, and stiff and cold, they seemed as if they would start from their graves, and escape the fearful fate, which had seized and destroyed their life.

And yet, even these would move the heart. They were those whom somebody loved, and, though seen in their distorted shapes and in that horrid place, were dear to their friends and gratefully recognized. Some even impressed the eye with what they were in life. Strong men, with enough of clothing left, or with their form and features sufficiently preserved, to show their gentle breeding or their business habits, betokened, through all the smoke and ruin, what they were and how esteemed. Women, too, were there, whose clothes were sufficiently preserved, to show what taste and culture they may have possessed, and in their forms, though blackened and burned, retained the grace and beauty which had been admired.

A little child was there, beautiful in death; the delicate little foot hid beneath the closely fitting shoe, the nicely tapered limbs, the graceful, lovely form, the tasteful dress, the hands so tiny and so touching in their shape, one could but love the little thing. Even the stranger wanted to take that sweet, that precious child, and clasp it to the heart; but no, that awful gash, that cruel blow had stricken all the beauty from the lovely face. If now, the mother would kiss her darling child, she must press her lip upon vacant air, hoping that, as she pressed that loved form to her aching heart, an angel spirit might catch the fond caress.

There were other more revolting scenes than these, but let the veil be drawn. The deformity of death must not distress the living, and yet those were happy, whose loved and lost had been reduced to ashes, in that fearful burning, rather than that they should thus find their precious forms, for the sight would shock their very hearts, and send back its warm affection to a chilled, an appalled, a horror stricken soul. No! the remnants of those deformed, defaced and half destroyed human forms, were better in the hands of strangers than with their friends. The grim certainty of their death, but the uncertainty as to whom the life belonged, were better with those who had less of the yearning for possession, than the friends. Citizens could take up the poor remains, when no one else could claim them, and could bury them with all the attention and kindness which was in their hearts, but no sense of possession was ever theirs; therefore, they were happy who felt and knew that the sacred ashes of their loved had been covered by the beautiful snow, and the valley was their grave.

The stream could sound their requiem; the lake could moan its lament, and every wave might be supposed to carry a portion of their precious forms to distant shores; but God alone could gather the elements, and fashion it for the future love. Nothing but the sacred urn of earth, which contains all that is mortal of the human race—nothing but this, is the depository of those loved forms which were once so full of life; but everything in nature becomes the more precious to the longing heart. Unseen fingers shall weave their garments in the spring, and the songs shall burst forth from those forest hills, but the better land contains their spirits, and to that, the living must go to claim their own.

THE NEW BRIDGE, WITH TEMPORARY UNDERPINNING.

[From a Photograph by Kitzsteiner & Greene, Cleveland.]