WADSWORTH & NIPllER TORNADO OF APRIL I4, 79. I I9 



The next building east of 19 was pierced in two places through its walls 

 by rafters from some of the destroyed buildings in the other end of town. 



Two of my neighbors (Messrs. Miller and Patton) had purchased a 

 property and divided it. On the division line there stood an out-kitchen. 

 Just before the storm they were devising means to dispose of it, neither 

 desiring to take it. A moment later there was a decision from the supreme 

 court : the building was torn to pieces and scattered, while the two-story 

 house was only shaken up severely. 



Very many other instances of singular escape and coincidence occurred, 

 but they have no special bearing on our subject. 



According to your own published reports, the storm reached St. Louis 

 at 2 o'clock p.m. Continuing from this point, we find it pursued an even 

 course with the same velocity, reaching Collinsville, lo^ miles east, at 

 2:35; Lebanon, 21 miles east, at3:oo; and Highland, 29 miles east, at 

 3 :30 (St. Louis time). It would seem that the necessary elementary con- 

 ditions for the development of the tornado were found over the American 

 Bottom, and that this development was purely local and did not extend much 

 over ten miles, and had no apparent influence upon the general storm that 

 was passing at a higher altitude to the eastward. That it consisted of a 

 principal vortex, of very considerable power, accompanied by six collateral 

 vortices, of much less power, that seemed to possess more than an t?ici- 

 detital relatio7iship to the pri?icipal: and a second principal vortex 

 apparently independent in time and direction. That the direction of the 

 principal vortex was 15° north of east, and, while there was a probable 

 swaying to the one side or the other, the paths of the vortices were in 

 straight lines. It will be noticed that the first four collateral vortices are 

 cofivergent upon the path of the principal vortex, and that the two last are 

 divergent. That the principal vortex was in contact with the surface while 

 it was receiving the first four, and that it had left the surface before it gave 

 off the last two collateral vortices. The height of the principal vortex was 

 about 500 feet, the collateral were comparatively small. The rotary spiral 

 motion was in the direction opposed to the movement of the hands of a 

 watch and of great velocity. The progressive motion was about one mile 

 a minute. It had also a vertical or lifting motion, which was often quite 

 abrupt (and proved the most interesting part about it to the writer, for by 

 this motion he escaped destruction). The path was narrow on the ap- 

 proach to Collinsville, about 100 feet, gradually widening, and the vortex 

 at the same time exhibiting less force. At the zinc works it was 600 feet 

 wide. Its lifting power was sufficient to carry large roofs at least 600 feet 

 high; this, with a power equal to the momentum of a body moving sixty 

 miles an hour, would carry heavy debris some distance. The effect of these 

 motions was to break up every object it carried up with it; even lumber, 

 taken up free from all contact with any thing else, would come down, in 

 many instances, in kindling wood. 



An interesting phenomenon in connection with the tornado, and cover- 

 ing a large proportion of the destruction attending it, comes from a pecu- 



