Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1880 — Cyclones. [ARTICLE]

Cyclones.

Recent observations and speculations on the phenomena of cyclones seem to confirm the theory of their electrical nature and origin: Within the last fifteen years they have increased in number if not in individual destructiveness. They may be accompanied by wind and storms or they may not be. They follow lines es railroad and water courses, having a great affinity for anything metalic on their path and lapping up the water from ponds and ditches along their way. They will tear off a tih roof, but leave a shingle roof uninjured. They will twkt off the iron smoke-stack of,a mill and leave the building otherwise unharmed. Persons caught in them find ffieir hands and faces colored dark or yellow iu a manner to require weeks to bleach out again. In a remaikable West India tornado, the houses encountered were not bloWn over, but burst outwaid. The branches of trees are found frayed with the ends like little brooms and the bark ofl not only on the side towards the path es the cyclone but all round the trunk. Why? Because the negative electricity in the tree suddenly developed to meet its positive counterpart in the moving stormcloud gasified the sap in the twigs and under the bark with the result above mentioned. The weight of inductive evidence of late years goes to show that the term eydone is a misnomer, and that the phenomena of these recently too frequent visitations are- to be studied from the standpoint of magnetic art and electrical science. This is Edison's peculiar province,! and| now that] he has given us the electric light, if he has done so, would it not be well for him to turn his attention towards warding off or dissipating cyclones and tornadoes? The light-ning-rod man has been in bad odor with the farmers of late. Indeed, like Othello, he has almost found his occupation gone; but may be the increasing ruin wrought by cyclones will revive his drooping industiy.