The latest New York papers mention a most destructive flood
in the valley of the Ohio. The river rose at the rate of twelve inches an hour for some twenty hours. It rose, less and less rapidly, for twelve hours longer; when it came to a stand, and soon after began to fall. The extreme height was from five to six feet higher than it was at the memorable floods of 1784 and 1813. The whole valley of the Ohio, from its source to its mouth, within the reach of this tremendous flood, presents one uninterrupted scene of waste, desolation, and dis- tress. The:farms in the rich bottoms have had the fences, dwell- ings, barns, corn and meat-houses' with their contents, and the stock, swept away. All the towns and villages along the river have been in- undated, • and many of the buildings destroyed. Forty-two houses have been swept -away from South Wheeling. The bridge over Wheeling Creek is gone. Thirty-five houses were counted floating down the livnr, When atits highest. A large warehouse, filled with flour, lodged on the upper point of the island. 'A gentleman who came up the Ohio from Louisville to Wheeling, and reached Baltimore city on Saturday night, confirms, says the Baltimore American, the statement, that almost every town and village on the river was more or less injured by the overflow of the waters. He states that he counted two hundred houses floating down with the current.
The Cincinnati American, under the date of February 17, says in re- spect of the flood, then near its highest—" The work of desolation still continues ; the river having reached nearly to Lower Market Street. Our composing-room is about a square from the publishing-office. When we issued the first circular, no one presumed it would reach much further than Columbia ; but all calculations have failed= it is still on the rise, it is still on the rise,' is all that is said or known. The boatmen are crying beneath our windows' 4 twelve and a half cents to the mouth of Main Street.' Every kind of craft is put in requisition, tubs, boxes, canoes, flats, dug-outs, skiffs, yawls, &c. &c. We cannot enumerate half of the sad calamities rumour is bringing in. The river, as it sweeps past with its accumulating waters, carries with it the wreck of desolation. A church passed the city with its steeple, for New Orleans —we presume a poor market. Excellent frame-houses float along, with haystacks, rails, leaving the farms stripped of every vestige of cultivation. The lower Millereek Bridge started yesterday morning. II unilton and Colerain bridges have also floated off, and the bridge over White River in Kentucky. The Kentucky river had backed up as far as Frankfort, sixty-four miles above its mouth. The Cumberland and Tennessee were both very high. We should think the water at this time (17th, in the evening) nearly at its height—rising this morning about one half of an inch an hour. We have but little to add to the above. From the look-out at the Commercial Hotel, corner of Broadway and Front, we had an excellent prospect of Cincinnati as-it is.' The waste of waters ! The suburbs East and West, with the lower part of the city, as far as Lower Market, the cellars of which are filled with water, were navigable in every direction. Newport, opposite this city, was pretty well afloat, the water reaching nearly to the windows in the second story• of the U. S. Arsenal. Covington does better, some dry land being yet discernible."
In some of the provinces of Persia, cholera and plague have carried off more than two-thirds of the population. The province of (Milan appears to have been among the greatest sufferers. Out of a popula- tion of 300,000, only 60,000 men and 44,000 women and children re- main. Time eggs of the silk-worms have been completely destroyed there, and it is calculated that it would take seven years to produce the seine quantity of worms as formerly. Before the arrival of these dis- eases, the revenues of (Milan were usually farmed at 350,000 tomauns. Since then, no more than 80,000 tomauns have been obtained.
There were some smart shocks of an earthquake at Parma lately. The first shock was felt at about eight o'clock in the morning of Sun- day the 11th of the present month ; it was succeeded by several other vibrations during that and the following day; on the 13th, at half-past four in the afternoon, there was a second shock, so violent that the whole population fled into the fields, fearing that Parma might suffer the fate of Foligno. The churches, the theatre, and all the public monuments, both ancient and modern, have sustained severe injuries.
At Reggio a most violent shock was experienced. All the houses sus- tained considerable damage, and several of them are rendered unin- habitable. The Austrian barracks were thrown to time ground, and four soldiers severely wounded: one of them is since dead.
A letter from Lima, dated November 19th, mentions that a dreadful earthquake took place at Arica on the evening of the f;th, at nine
o'clock, which nearly reduced all the houses to a state of ruin. In Tacma, the walls of nearly all the houses were cracked, and one fell in. The distance between Arica and Tacma is about fourteen leagues. A place called Locembe, about twelve leagues to the north of Arica, is
said to have been levelled to the ground. The shock was also felt at Tslay and Arequipa, but was not felt at Lima.
At the weekly meeting of the Academy of Sciences, on Monday ennight, Baron (le Humboldt communicated the important informa- tion, that a magnetic observatory had been founded in the island of Cuba, which, together with that of M. Arago at Paris, that of M. de Humboldt at Berlin, and that which the learned Baron has established at Pekin, extends the means of making diurnal magnetic observations over 198 degrees of longitude. All these observatories are furnished with similar instruments by the same maker.
The Portuguese Regency have appointed a series of packets to run every ten days between Terceira and Falmouth. Four vessels of light construction and g iod sailers have been taken up for that purpose.
Letters from Fernando Po state, that the Black Joke and Fair Rosamond tenders, while cruising off the river Bonny, captured in that river, in September, two large Spanish armed brigs, mimed the Regulus and Rapido. They each sailed with four hundred slaves on board ; but being chased up the river, the Spaniards landed the greater part of the slaves, and run the vessels on shore. The miscreants in the Rapido, not being enabled to land their slaves in the canoes quick enough, threw overboard one hundred and twenty-five shackled together, only two of whom were saved, by a boat from the Black Joke.
The Prince of Hohenzollern has just married his cook.—French Paper.
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