time the passengers in the sleeper had been rudely thrown from their berths by the shock of the wreck, and happily found their car standing safely on the track, on the very brink of the chasm. Some ran back to Altoona, about two miles distant, while others made desperate and heroic efforts to drag the crushed and drowning passengers from the wreck. For hours men worked with the energy of despair to extricate groaning and shrieking women, children and men from where they were held in the vice-like grip of broken, twisted iron and timbers of the piled up and telescoped wrecks of the cars. But it was not until a wrecking train arrived two hours after the ruin was wrought, that all of the victims were extricated from the piles of ruins. Seventeen were placed lifeless on the banks of the creek. Thirty-eight other passengers of the ill-fated train were crushed, mangled or bruised in various degrees, three of whom died. Many were maimed or crippled for life. The bridge had gone down in the flood before the train reached the creek and two other railroad bridges between that and Des Moines were swept away by the same flood, so that the train was doomed to destruction in any event.
The amount of public land granted and certified to the State, for various purposes, up to 1878, was more than 8,000,000 acres, or nearly one-fourth of the entire area of the State. Of this amount 4,400,000 acres were granted to aid in building railroads and in improving the navigation of the Des Moines River; 1,555,000 acres had been granted for the support of the public schools; 204,000 acres for the State Agricultural College; 1,570,000 acres of swamp land.
The report of the Auditor of State for the year ending November 1, 1877, shows some interesting facts:
The number of cattle assessed was 1,452,546 valued at $14,898,841; number of swine over six months, 1,654,708, value $3,899,301. The number of horses as 659,385, valued at $20,100,263; mules, 42,887, value $1,670,154.
