Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1879 — TERRIFFIC TORNADOES. [ARTICLE]

TERRIFFIC TORNADOES.

1 •. > . . Tioß's Terrible Yarns of Electrical Gales that Carry Off Barns and Butter Rails; that Peel the Trees and Plnck Out the Tails of Roosters and Geese; that Lift 'Great Guns and Suck Up Wells, Drink Rivers Dry, Snatch Church Bells Away to the l^cy! Tiic Seas Ablaze, the Mountain* on Fire, and Many a riiuNC of the Storm Fiend’* Awful Ire! ' An Earthquake hero, a Oyclone there, A Broad Zone Drear, a Narrow One Fair. Tho Hail that Felts in Stormy Salts, the Rains that Four, tho Thunder’s Hoar, the Blinding 1 Flash, tho Eaholng Crash—The Terrible Tales that Professor Tice Tells la his Almanac Weird and Itics, Marvelously Cheap for Science and Sense—the Cost being Only Twenty Penoe.

From Tice's National Weather Almanac. The ytar 1878 has been very prolific in tornadoes, and consequently of allied phenomena that are but tornadoes in.various modifications, such as hali-storins, cloud-bursts and water-spouts. A hurricane is the same phenomena as a tornmkq but on a gigantic scale und in an Aggravated form, S nco theso are phenomena of tlie cause of which scholastics confess their utter ignorance, any information that will throw light upon them must be acceptable to the thinking public. It is not derogatory to tho scholastics, but their caudorjj is commendable, to confess their utter ignorance of the causes that produce these terrible phenomena. It is, however, presumption in them to infer that because they do not know, therefore •‘nobody can tell the cause of tornadoes,’" as one of them lately replied to an anxious inquirer# On tlie 23d of August, 1878, a heavy fiiiihdci-st orm had formed on t her Snowy r.unge, some eight miles West of Georgetown, Colorado. It hung there all the afternoon, but after sunset the clo(ids became heavy and very dark. At nine o’clock they canid rolling over tho mountains that form tho narro.v canyon that walls in Georgetown. My record reads; ‘•The clouds, as they rolled over the mountains, whose lops they touched, were luminous, as though they rellected the lurid Tight of a distant fire, while tile canjun seemed filled with an atmosphere of | pitcii darkness. This phenomenon was i Miecee.icd by a heave-raw an 1 hail-storm.’’ ' Mr. Harris, who is ewgazdl in mining, j uold me that:one night, about the mi TdL | of July, ha was suddenly enveloped by a j dense cloud, which, for a few moments, , caused Egyptian darkness. Suddenly the j whole mountain, the .Republican* where he j was, became Kluinbiifted »s bright «S with j a full moon, and he had no trouble to find 1 -the trail that lead to town, but when he stood on the verge of th<* canyon, on Democra', which overlooks Georgetown, lie saw the tops of Griffith mountain, on the east of the canyon, and Leavenworth, on the sottth;-bfetqvise illuminated, while the cunyon seeffihd filled with ink. Mr. O’Leary, the first signal office übserver iinon Hike’s Peak, informs wo that to heavy clouds pass over the I’eak at night without tho summit becoming luminous, often ‘atfurding sufficient light to’rend the instruments by; und that at all limes, when a cloud is over the peak, blue electricity plays up and dow-n tlio stove-pipe, as though burning alcohol was intermittently poured on tlio pipe above. He confirms the observations of myself and others, that the vapor in the center of the Unil-clnud is always luminous, and hums like an electric battery in operatibn. Tire ~ bail and show falling frtmr it rutile like me fa], and sparks fly from it. Like the hail-storms of Egypt, tire wits running along the surface of tlio enrtn. “There was'hail, and fire mingled with 'llilil,rand it broke crerv tree in the field.” “Lambient flames,” under electric clouds, aro seen to play upon thegtowns of the Ande*, the Alps, the Hirnahtyas; in fact, of high mountains everywhere; and are a well-establislped phenomenon. After night sometimes, there is seen a volume, apparently, of (lame bursting from tlie] mountain and throwing itself into tlie over-hanging cloud, when tho cloud suddenly collapses and falls into a cataract of water on the nwmntnifl. This causes the, phenomenon called cloud-hursts in (lie %ocky mountsins. I whs so fortunate as to sec this phenomena take place on Mt. La Plata, near Leadviiic, Colorado, on the night of September 3d, 1878. Vivid lightning commenced in tlie cloud as soon as it had broken loose from the mountain an dll ad drifted over (lie Twin lakes; maises of clouds now enmo from Grizzly Peak, Mt. Elbert and Mt. Massive. They united witii tho storm-cloud in the rear, and-ex-tended it westward back over the mountain ngaiq. instantly Mt. La Plata hurst out into a flame, which struck the cloud. The latter suddenly vanished, having collapsed, -and tell in a cascade upon the tnmiiit'nin, This is the phenomenon appropriately named by the inhabitants a cloudburst. l «der an electric c’.cuj, the tops of trees, tho ridges of »*ofs, the guards of bridges, the crowns and rims of hats, tlio harness on horses, tlie bjeaks of eagles, aro seen to glow with light, or to emit flames, as did tlio lances o{ Caisar’s fifth legion inarching in a stormy night to make an attack in one of his African campaigns. Bt. Elmo’s fire of the sailor is the same phenomenon, IVm. Thrail, in 1837, itpa haibor of the Orkney filslands,, saw at night a tongue of flamo issuing from the topmast and pointing northwest at an approaching; thunder cloud. This tongue attained tho length of from three to four’ feet when the cloud passfcd tho zenith, still pointing to tho cloud; and as the bitter passed off towards the southeast, tho flamo followed it, but decreased as the distance from the cloud increased, until it died out. St. Eiilio’s made its appearance during a tropica] storm, ot< the masts of the ships of Columbus,ion his first Voyage of discovery. It made its appearance on tlie prows aud sterns of tho Spartan licet during a storm at night when on their wav to, aUfthk the "Greeks tit .'Egos l’ota* mo*. It h seen on a stormy night i> blaze from the, {summit of the pyramids. Moses saw it on Mount Iforcb, in the burning bush that was not consumed, l’cfore ttm invention of gas-light, in sinru*y -nights, it was illuminate' the evofc |7.T Notre Oinne. Paris, and the crosses and I bnlli. cm ehureli steepfcain every village in I Europe. Every salient poiirt bf ship# at

son. in stormy nights, is seen to enlit rt hrhsli of unconsuiniiig slams, in fact) tile phenAtlio'noii is so common and so well kneiVn that it excitos but little curiosity Yet, it is an opprobrium to so-called science that it ttflnnot account for it. In the tornado I that ’ cut nn nvezuo through All junta, Georgia, before day on the mornitlg of Pekinary Bth. 1878, its path, while Swept by the cloud-,spout, appeared to 1)0 itt a blaze, rt wave of flame rolling along the earth. Tho lower end of the cloud-spout ill tlio torpedo in St. Louis county, before <jrt}V July ?9th, 1878, was tipt with a iff tiro as large ns a wasli tub,’’ and it bounded along the enrlh like a ball, met by a counter flame Whenever it touched tbc surface. In tli# great tornado of Georgia and South Carolina, March 120th■ 1873, at midday, tho jet black cloud spouts, now dipping down and now sweeping along tlie earth, appeared to be on fire, ami a wave pf tire roiled along tho earth bcticnlh thefn. The unsophisticated poople, w'httn and black, who saw it, declared Hint they ‘•thought the end of tho world Jisd cotfio, and that they nnjreverything" wete about to he burnt up,’’ In tlie Mount Carmel, Illinois, tornado, of Junp Ist, 1877. a lurid flame was seen in the center of the spout, and when it came down, it would scintillate nnd explode a* if the cloud-spoilt were filled with millions of tire-crackers. In the New Harmony tornado, April 30, 1851, the lower end of tlio cloud-tongue appcarod “like a brush-heap on fire.” In the dlsastious Richmotid tornado of June Ist, 1878, “the cloud-spout glowed like a furnace,’’ and whenever it struck the earth and especially when it struck a house, a blue flame would leap from the earth nnd from' every object-~ ; wMrtfi--the house. In th* Wallingford tornado tho Ilev. Dr. Adams “saw two masses of clouds come together nnd form a whirling column with lurid foam at >the top. I', was accompanied by a tremendous roar, . nnd the column at once deactflided upon the lake, raising and carrying along a vast body of water! so that dead fish are to be found some distance.” In a tornado in Sangamon county, Ul.nois, on tlie sth of June, 1871, a column of blue flame, from 30 to -10 feet high, Issued from the ground and attached itself to the cloud-sport and swept along with it for miles across the prairie. Ia the destruction of machine-shop and fnclory at CliHtcnay, .France, an tlie TOtli of Jitae, ” 1830, by a tornado, the workmen saw a blue flamo burst from material, shop and machinery, at tlio moment the building vanished. Two negroes in the great hurricane in tlie isle of liarhadocs, in 1835, fleeing fur shelter to the parsonage through ibe garden, saw themselves and the shrubbery in a-blaze. Ezekiel ; raw, in a whirlwind, images of tiro moving up ar.d down. Elijah wont to heaven in a chariot of tiro in a whirlwind. In fact, aneiehtas well ns modern history, sacked and prefane poetry literature, romance and science, all arc tilted with d ascription of tho imposing ami [kharacteristio ’phenomena, of fire aocoj-.iponying tlio fUiirui Ei#n 1 over tlio lasi ami sea, attended by the whirlwind, and clothed in btaok and lurid clouds. Yet, again, so-called science stands mum before the wonderful aud terrible apparition. k ... Here wo liavc identical!plietomena appearing on mountain, plain apd sea, slightly modified by circumstances and by locality, but never without an electric cloud of high tension overhead. The appearance. hence, must depend on the electric cloud. Since a non-electric cloud, ur one of feeble electric tension, doe* not evoke tho phenomenon; hence, the phenomenon must depend upon the electricity with which the cloud is affected. Electricity is, therefore, tlie immediate cause of it. The glowing cioud-tongue, and the electric flamo bursting from the car'll beneath to meet it, are always in tho center u.f ihe vortex around which the tornado revolves; and neither they nor the tornado aro ever seen sepahately and apart; hence Ihe tornado must be caused by the intense electric action between the purls of this glowing vortex. All the circumstances nnd facts, therefore, show that electricity is the immediate cause of tornadoes; and if tornadoes, then, of all other species of cyclones. Not only the cause of cyclores, but also of hall, rain and snow storms, for they differ not in kind, but only in degree from cyclones. That electricity is the'eause of cyclones, is so well fortifiod by facts, nnd is such an inevitable deduct ion from them, that the proposition is incontrovertible and will not be seriously contested, fertfee this is so, ts#e«t*se it can not be otherwise, unless we ilmpugn tlie authority of the facts, mistrust our own senses, and ignore all rules of logic; hence, by electric laws, all the extraordinary and wonderful facts attending tordadoes and other cyclone* must be explainable. Gan this be done? But, first, let us see what the facts are.' Tlie most obvious fact in tornadoes ts their irresistablc energy. This energy is exerted both vertically and laterally. FatU filling volumes to this effeet might bo quoted, Since the tornado end the wator-Spouf arc the same phenomenon, being mutually interconvcrtablo, for a tornado becomes a water-spout, when it passes over water, and revert* to a tornado when it returns to the laufl again; therefore, the facts in both are identical, differing only in tlie kind of matter moved. Tornadoes often commence over bodies of Water. The tornado of St. Charles, Mo., February 27th, 1870, began over the sucked up the mud from its bed, and then spewed it out upon the town. 'The Mt. Carmel tornado di'd die same with tho Wabash; the Comanche, lows, tornado drank tho Mississippi up and’the lowa tornado of May 22d, 1873, scooped the North Sknnk river! to its bed rock for a distance of a mile and a half. The Richmbnd. Mo., towuulacommenced oTtir a pond, and the Wallingford. Conn., tornado commenced “ over Community Take. The Richmond tornado, when it rc-appeared near Norbornc, descended uport Highsingci’s pond,.aud drank the west end up. In every case the water and mud was scopped to the bottom of the river or pond and carried forward, eoating everything in its path with mud. Forty years ago, ill central Missouri, a tornado .transformed ! into a water-spout ascending a river, struck ; a mill-dam, over which the water was pouring, tore out the dam and hurled rock and timber, upon the banks. The Oinahatprnodo, that occurred before day, zYugust, riStb, 1877, transformed into a water-spent and descending the Missouri,' sWuek the ; iron rail rood bndgdSJta tit's ft me glowing ■ with electric light, SoSybai every imr. pokt and rail was visible—lifted two spans, each weighing from 8,1100 to 10,000 tons, into \ th* fiir and hurled theui'into the river. "•*».; ]he tornado at Middletown, Ohld.' Wery ’ drop of water in Mr. Golfimrt't cistern 1 shpt into the cloud. In Richmond Wells ; vjre'r* emptied of tfieh* water and wellTmekets wore lifted out and carried away.

fn fit# (Itohroe City, Mo., loi-Awloof Mbrfn lot It.' 187(1, every drop ofwaler ftkim Mr. JerAmo Hendrick's well, Al feet deopt.. w*{ shot into tta clond-sp-mt nff if plmw over tire rtVoukh of lilt) well.** . In (lie Du Greff, Ohio, tornado, Jnneftni lfii?, a pQin^‘iff « welt, a few feet weet of u bonne, was jerltfcrt out of (he well and hurled over tfte hotise ifitff tjif ffdtit while the houio wax not touched. The same tornrtdo, 6W Col. M. C. Anderson’*" firm, in Dafke jerked an Iron pump, 28 feet loffjjj, oAf of a #elltm?eiffriod it nwny so thrt£ If pkvir was fouWi In the east St. Louis totrfado, Mareb Bth, 1871, Ihe iron platform, WcilWng £lw pounds, of (lie idovator in (he tbSTfoi the east pier, 70 feet below the tap of if*# plerA shut out and never woe seen or Iteifrd or uflervrnrds. •, I litse urn facta in all respect* similar in character- and how ,lo thny harmonise with the scholastic notion that hind i-mtses them? Do they pot contfafens aftd ettu,traffic! that notion at alf poiiMtr/ ll(T# call wind got tiildW the water in rife b<f£ tool of lakes and rivSrs *nd hurl them into tbn sky? Ho# can wind get under the wait*! iff cisterns uni wells and shoot it oht as though the cistern or well were * loaded chnnon? How did it get Into,the bottom of the shaft in the pier of the Bt. Lniiis bHdjrff, aCd start With a perpendicular, velocity of at least 800 rttllcs an huurf Why, tint there sftrtetnctrt oT the facts shows how preposicf'Ont the scholastic no* (ion about these phenomena is.