no TRANS. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



direction it was going, and he felt the force very strongl}'. He 

 thinks he was at the outer border of it. It passed on to the barn 

 near by and turned it over ; and that it was some minutes later 

 {about eight, he thinks) the clouds came from over the little 

 lake from the northeast, whirling rapidly, and struck the ground 

 a few rods distant, and scattered in all directions, but still leaving 

 the ground covered with white steamy-looking clouds that pre- 

 vented one from seeing any distance. 



This cleared in a great measure the difficulties of evidence here. 

 We still made no explanation until the next day, when, in com- 

 pany with Mr. Weber, we went over the matter again and 

 ■explained to them the difficulty we had had to reconcile their 

 evidence. There had evidently been two vortices that passed 

 over this point, varying a little in time. This now established 

 the track of the tornado in a straight line for the distance of ten 

 miles. 



Meantime we had learned that Mrs. John Blake had had a full 

 view of the storm, and we called on her (her residence is at No. 

 4, D. i), and learned that she was sitting at an east window, and, 

 hearing an unusual noise, looked out and saw in the street near 

 the house a whirlwind as tall as the trees, of dark purplish color, 

 making a roaring sound, and, moving rapidly towards Mr. W.J. 

 Matthews' house, just escaping the corner of it, took a direct 

 course for Germantown (southern part of Collinsville). Mr. W. 

 J. Matthews did not see it, but states his house was shaken, and 

 the cellar doors opened, and that two trees in a little orchard near 

 the house were taken. Upon noticing this line, the rear part of 

 the school building came right into the centre of the field ; and 

 now with Mrs. Blake's eyes to take it to Germantown, and Mrs. 

 J. W. Peers' to trace it from there over the school building, we 

 were enabled to say that there was more than one tornado that 

 day ; and to Mrs. Peers and Mrs. Blake, that they had not seen 

 the tornado that had made most of the destruction. 



We pass now to some other considerations respecting First 

 Principal Line. 



Mr. H. R.Johnson (residing at No. 5, D. i, half a mile west 

 of Collinsville) states that "about i p.m. I went out to work and 

 noticed a peculiar look to the clouds ; heard a little thunder a 



