TORNADOES AND TALL BUILDINGS 351 



miles an hour would be required to accomplish the fact. But 

 estimates of this sort are apt to lead us astray. It is the 

 incalculable force that strips fowls of their feathers and drives 

 straws through railway ties that sets us to wondering if 

 the tornado will not always be a puzzle to scientists. Its 

 "eccentricity" manifests itself in the manner in which it 

 rebounds from the earth or swings from side to side on its 

 axis. Hazen declares that no two are alike in appearance or 

 behaviour. Last summer when in London I was much in- 

 terested in the accounts of a funnel-shaped storm that wrought 

 disaster in Wales, coming through a gap in the hills and dis- 

 playing all the indices of a full-fledged tornado. But such 

 visitors are rare in Great Britain, though not in France, Austria, 

 and certain regions of Germany. The waterspout, a wet brother 

 of the tornado, is not missing in the Western world. The 

 mountains and forests are the best safeguards against tornadoes ; 

 nevertheless, it has been written : " Nothing erected by the 

 hand of man could withstand a tornado." And on this rather 

 pessimistic note let us close. 



