ABSTRACT
The floods of September 1897 were a little less severe than those of the previous year, but the floodwaters were as contaminated as ever. Lingering hopes of the effectiveness of the Order rapidly evaporated. A group of peasants who managed to visit Ashio that same month reported that one sediment basin close to the sources of the River Watarase was overf lowing, and that the walls of another were cracked, without any attempt being made at repair. Ominously, too, the mountain slopes around Ashio were still being denuded of their forests, with little sign of the replanting that the government had decreed.
