752 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Credible persons testify to having seen a horse carried over the 

 roof of a barn, and again let down, without receiving serious injury. 

 A child's necklace, with locket attached, was picked up in the village 



of A , having been carried by the storm from W , eight miles 



distant ! Mr. and Mrs. T , living in L , were both killed, and 



their house destroyed by the tornado. A vest belonging to Mr. T , 



containing valuable papers and a sum of money, was found in the town 

 of P , twenty miles away, and restored to the relatives of the de- 

 ceased owner ! 



Wagons, agricultural implements, and household furniture, will be 

 carried a long distance and broken into fragments by the tornado, 

 while delicate mirrors and sets of glass-ware may be spared. The 

 giants of the forest will be torn to splinters, while the modest flowers 

 beneath them are left blooming as sweetly as if nothing had occurred ! 



The belief has obtained to some extent that tornadoes follow sub- 

 terranean veins of water. That they are repeated in certain localities, 

 have a fondness for belts of timber and small water-courses provided 

 they run in the right direction there can be no doubt. They also 

 travel over a portion of country previously moistened by rain. This 

 rule has but few exceptions. 



The increasing frequency and severity of these visitations (not- 

 withstanding what may be said to the contrary) compel the writer to 

 believe that radical changes are taking place in our atmosphere and 

 climate ; that the construction of great railroad-belts across the conti- 

 nent and the erection of a vast network of telegraph and telephone 

 wires exert an influence upon the atmosphere, by disturbing the equi- 

 librium of electric forces. The fact that tornadoes do not closely 

 follow railroad and telegraph lines is not sufficient to disprove the 

 soundness of this theory ; and, whether true or false, the fact of the 

 climatic change remains, and opens a vast field for further exploration 

 by the electrician and the meteorologist. 



Long-range predictions and weather forecasts may be safely in- 

 dulged in, if made in a general way ; but, when confined to fixed dates 

 and certain localities, they have usually proved a hollow mockery, 

 and brought ridicule upon the authors. 



The United States Signal Service has proved to be quite reliable in 

 its observations and predictions of approaching storms, and slfould re- 

 ceive due credit for its service rendered in protection of life and prop- 

 erty. The benefits might be still further extended by a system of 

 railway-express signals, operated in connection with it and by the 

 direction of the Government observers at the different stations. Un- 

 fortunately, however, the warnings of this Service can not reach all 

 concerned in time to be of value, nor can it protect in the hour of 

 danger : as witness the tornado which visited the States of Texas, 

 Mississippi, and Louisiana, on the 22d of April, in the present year, by 

 which over one hundred persons lost their lives ; also those which 



