Mount Vernon's Dikes Held—Barely—as the Skagit Rose

Mount Vernon, Jan. 13.—Special.—The Skagit River has been rising all day and is up to within one foot of last May's mark. The river broke a dike on the east side near Fir last night, and the water has been pouring through and up the land between Mount Vernon and Stanwood. So far as heard from, this is the only dike that has broken on the river. The high tide of last night, however, again went over the salt-water dikes, and as a result a large share of the bottom lands from Swauk to Edison is under water. A conservative estimate is that 1,000 farms in this county are under salt water from one to three feet deep, and if this destroys crops for two years, as predicted, the damage will be very great. At Whitney the tide came in eight inches higher last night than on the previous night. Several miles of plank road are floating there, and the Seattle & Northern track is badly washed. Half a mile of the Great Northern track below Fir is under water, and the railway grade stands in water for a distance of at least twelve miles. A handcar which started for Stanwood today had to be brought back on account of a washout. No train has reached Mount Vernon today, and no mail has arrived from any direction since Friday. Residents of lowlands all along the strip of land contiguous to the Sound have had to move into second stories, but as the water came in slowly the damage from washing will be small. The new dike at Mount Vernon has held so far, but the water is seeping through, and it may break before morning. Some of the timid ones of 'Missouritown' are preparing boats with which to escape in case the dike breaks. The telephone wires are down south, and the Western Union is reported down north of Snohomish. Both the wagon bridges and the Great Northern bridge are standing the freshet well.