Claims against the city of Seattle aggregating nearly a half a million dollars were filed with the city council Monday afternoon by persons who allege that they suffered loss of property from the flood which swept down Boxley canyon on the morning of December 23, 1918, destroying the town of Edgewick. The claimants contend that the flood was caused by seepage from the city's impounding basin at Cedar river, alleging that the city had been "experimenting with the filling of the basin." The claims filed Monday were twenty-four in number and aggregated $493,472.16.

The North Bend Lumber Company's claim was the largest, amounting to $360,768.22. Of this amount, $8,385.78 was for the building and $69,323.10 for the equipment of the main sawmill. The balance covered the loss of planing mill, machine shop, two pumphouses, dry lumber shed, office building, residences, machinery, bunkhouses, club house and equipment, telephone and railroad lines, lumber, groceries, etc.

The claim of the Druid Lumber Company was for #26,706.80, the property alleged to have been lost or damaged including a sawmill plant and a large quantity of lumber and tools.

The army Y. M. C. A. spruce division, filed a claim for $266.75 to cover the loss of moving picture apparatus in the club house.

Other claims were as follows: L. A. Wade, house washed away, furniture and clothing lost, $3,522.07; John Berggren, clothing lost, $180.65; F. W. Taber, furniture and clothing, $3,737.95; T. E. Dorgan, furniture, $375.05; John G. Workman, furniture and tools, $666; F. O. Weise, personal property, furniture and clothing, $3,063.84; A. M. Paulsen, personal property, furniture and clothing, $1,809,15; Peter Peterson, tools, $811.45; H. L. Fleming, tools, $180.40; W. C. Weeks, steam locomotive, automobile and personal property, $3,323; Arthur Larson, house and contents, $2,615.35; C. L. Mansfield, house and contents, $3,378.25; O. R. Dunham, furniture and clothing, $926.35; John Bardan, clothing, $50; John E. Law, tools, $52.15; H. E. Lockwood, tools, $53.20; F. M. McElroy, house and contents, $3,439.95; Grant Lightheart, tools, $98.90; Innovation Shingle Company, shingle mill and machinery, $78,515; Mabel Baird Mayer, furniture, $585; Elisabeth Close, damage to land and loss of personal property, $2,705.

In stating the grounds for their claims for damages the claimants recite the fact tht the city built and maintains a masonry dam across the Cedar river for the purpose of forming an impounding basin to develop water power. "After the completion of the dam, the city experimented with the filling of said impounding basin," the claims state, "and thereby proved what was previously known from the sinking of test holes, that the north bank of said impounding basin was composed of sand, gravel, and other pervious material, and that the impounded water would, when raised, much above their normal level, seep or pass in underground channels into and through the north bank of the impounding basin and reappear at various points at a lower level on the hillside a mile or so to the north of Dedar river.

"After such experimenting, the city attempted to seal the north bank of said impounding basin by spreading clay and silt over the same. A few weeks before December 23, 1918, the city, in order to acertain the results of its efforts at sealing, closed the masonry dam and caused the water to rise far above its normal height in the canyon and basin above the dam and in Cedar lake. Again the impounded water seeped or passed in underground channels into and through the porous north bank of the impounding basin, the quantity so escaping increasing as the level of the water was raised in the bain.

"The city knew that the water was so escaping in large volume yet notwithstanding such knowledge, continued to impound the water and caused the level thereof to be raised higher and higher until it reached a height never before attained in the city's experiments. Finally, on the morning of December 23, 1918, the water so percolating and flowing through the north bank of the impounding basin burst forth in great volume on the hillside into the basin of Boxley creek, carrying with it great quantities of gravel, logs and othe debris and causing the flood and destruction above mentioned."