Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 March 1879 — The Power of Tornadoes. [ARTICLE]

The Power of Tornadoes.

From Prof. Tioo’* National WoalAor Almanac. In th* tornado that cut an avenue through Canton, China, April 11th, 1878, by which over 9.000 houses were destroyed, and fully 10,000 inhabitanta ware killed, boats wert taken out of the Viver and carried far inland, one boat wa» let down upon the top of a boose, in tho tenth ward, outside of the storm’* track. In the Navnssoo tornado, September 11, 1875, a boat waa lifted out of the water and carried across the inland, which rises to a height in the centre of 80 feet above the lea; and a large rock, weighing at least twenty-five ton*, was lifted and is supposed to have been car ried into the sea, as it ha* not been seen or heard of since. In the Mount Carmel, tornado, Mr. Lewi* dolt’s new, unpainted frame house was seen to plunge into the clouds, and no fragment of it or its contents was ever found. In ths Cottonwood, tornado, of April 13 th, 1878, three houses at different point* in the track, were lifted over tho paling fences not torn down, by which they were surrounded, and sot down uninjured. In the great lowa tornado, a house standiug in a grove was lifted over the trees, The Richmond tornado furnishes a similar fact. Dr. Jacobs’s house was lifted over an ashleaved maple planted last spring, and about fifteen feet high, and over the standing posts of hi* fence, the palings being wrenched off. It tovgp carried southeast about sixty yard* and torn into fragments almost in the face of the storm which was moving north Person* who saw Dr. Jacobs’* house go, say that it leaped at least torty feet perpendicularly. Mr. Theodore Main, who from a distance saw Mr. R. E. Rrown’s dwelling leap into the cloud, say* it went up perpendicularly in an instant, and so high that a space of from forty to fifty feet below it and between it and the ridge of the Presbyterian church was visible for an instant, until the latter building vanished like a dream. In the Barrington, Ills., tornado, of May 23d, 1878, Mr. Henry Minnecke’g granary, in which were stored over 200 bushels of grain, was lifted over cherry trees without touching them, carried fully one hundred feet, anil dropped uninjured almost against his dwelling, which escaped with no other damage than the loss of a few shingles. The wings of Mrs. Riley’s house, in the Sioux City tornado, were jerked off, and her son in th* wing was hurled over the main building and over some trees beyond and let down unhurt. William Hollen, trying to drive liis cattle from the barn, was, with barn and cattle, snatched up in the air, and neither he nor his cattl* cr barn were ever heard of afterward. A boy in the same neighborhood, driving home cattle, wat caught up by the tornado and was never found.

On the 3d of July, 1873, a farmer at Avon, I I*., who fled for safety to a barn, to escape tornado, was bewildered and astonished to find that the barn had vanished and that the tornado had disappeared with it. On the 27th of April, 1877, at Lake City, Indiana, a farmer fleeing to his bouse to warn his family of an approaching tornado, finding it upon his heels when he got there, seized his child l standing in the door, ran to a tree in front of the house, threw his arm around it, but caught nothing, for the tree, torn up by the roots, and the tornado had both vanished, leaving him. standing in a calm atmosphere with hi* child in his arms. The tree was seen iu great aerial circles sweeping around th* cloud-spout. In Cook county, Ills., about ten years ago, a tornado sweeping -over the prairie, scooped out a trench in the soil, from a foot to eighteen inches in depth, and tore up a boulder, fully ten inches under th* soil, weighing about 250 pounds, and carried it 100 yards. In the Mt. Carmel tornado, •the upper and under blocks of th* northwest corner of Mr. Stein's stable were shot' out. Each was a foot in diameter and fourteen inches long. The top of the upper was even with the soil, the lower end of the under wa» therefore twenty-eight inches below the soil. The upper was not carried exeee ling thirty feet;, the under one never was found. The extraordinary lifting force of tornado** is a fact as old as history, as old as tradition even, as the following instances showfl) The lifting of * gun—a 12 pounder —and carrying it a distance of 140 yards, by tho terrible cyclone that occurred in Barbados* on the tenth of October, 1780, by which 4,320 personslost their lives', and in which fifteen men-of-war belonging to th* British navy, carrying 472 guns, w*r* wrecked and destroyed. (2) Theliftingof apiece Of lead, Weighing 4,000 lbs., and carrying it 1,800 feet, by the great cyclone of Augnst 10, 1881, in Barbadoes. by which over 2,500 perrons were killed and three times,|batnuni-> ber were wounded. ' 1 ' (3) The lifting of a solid piece of iron, weighing over 800 lbs , and carrying it from the center of Fort Jefferson, Tortugas, 200 yards over the parapet, by the cyelon* of October 5, 1873, vouched for by Col. Langdon, the commander of the post. (4) The lifting out of the ground of a reck, estimated to weigh over 18,000 lbs., exposed to the wind from, five to seven inches on one side only,, ahd carrying it some distance, which was done by the great tornado of Georgia and South Carolina of March 20, 1871. (5) Theliftingof a locomotive, weighting thirty tons, carrying it seventy feet and setting it down right side up in a pond near by, which occurred at the terminus of Toledo, Wabash and Western railway, at East St. Louis. March Bth, 1871. (6) The instant arrestation of a passenger train—moving at the tate of twenty - five miles an hour—and everything ini it, so as neither to throw passenger* or anything forward; —lifting it from the rail and letting it down on emb*nkment,"cau*ing it to turn over on it* side, wbieh happened on the 6th of Muy, 1876, in a tornado on the Illinois Central railway, between Mattoon aud M eoga. The same feat was repeated with the express train on the Cincinnati, Lafayette a “d Chicago railway, near Kankakee, Illinois, on June 26th, 1877. ' The train had ten care filled with passengers. The lifting phenomena of tornadoes must have been a fact well known to the ancient*; at least this is an inference from what Aristotle say* of aerolites. He account* for them “a* being stone* taken up by whirlwinds and carried a great distance.’’ The wind theory of tornadoes hence is perceived to be an old dogma. If it did not originate with Aristotle, it waa at least held by him, Though our scholastic* can give ao valid reason “for the faith that ia in them,’’ they have the highest scientific authority of anfiquity for bolding it. We'may accuse them of being wilfully deaf and blind to th* teaching* of nature; l>utdneihing wecannot do: we cannot call into question their orthodoxy; because, we seq tuat for X&'X) they have, kept the faith in ito purity a* delivered tt> them by the great Stagarite. ""