Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1894 — Not Blown Off by the Wind. [ARTICLE]

Not Blown Off by the Wind.

About a year ago the telegraphic dispatches contained an account of a wind storm in Missouri, which not only blew down houses and fences and caused great loss of life, but actually stripped the feathers from a rooster. The correspondent stated that not even the pinfeathers were left, and his description of how the cock next morning strutted forth, flapped his naked wings and crowed with a somewhat-d-isflgured-but-still-in-the-ring style caused considerable merriment. It was reasoned that a wind of such force would hare blown the fowl to Jericho, and the writer was sei down as a Munchausen. Scientific research, however, sustains the story, but ascribes the rooster’s condition to another cause. A writer in Der Stein der Weisen says: “Among the most astonishing effects of whirlwinds must be reckoned the well-supported facts that, on their cessation, birds exposed to them have been found stripped of their feathers, and people with every shred of clothing torn from them. These effects cannot possibly be ascribed to the wind. The force necessary would have sufficed to transport the objects away bodily. Numerous similar occurrences were observed in France in the tornadoes which prevailed there three years ago, and these were gradually brought under Investigation. Over the whole region affected trees were found rent in a manner which could not possibly have resulted from the wind. These were, first, oaks split down the center for a length of twenty to twenty-five feet; second, poplars and beeches for a length of six to twelve feet were shivered into sticks of uniform thickness (for example, a beech tree sixteen inches in diameter was split into more than 500 sticks a centimeter thick, two centimeters broad and thred and a half centimeters long); third, firs and other resinous trees had their stems cut 1 clean through, leaving almost surfaces. These phenomena and others of kindred nature can be ascribed only to electricity.