THE ERUPTION OF BAXDAI-SAX. 



115 



levelling of houses and shattering of forests are of common occur- 

 rence in great storms. Bat on this occasion the destroying tempests 

 especially near the crater were something more than atmospheric, 

 consisting besides of heated blasts of steam and air, thickly mix- 

 ed with dust and rock-fragments fierce enough to crush the trees and 

 to strip them not only of branches but even of their bark, and wither- 

 ing, scoring, and scorching everything in their course. 



Some of the most terrible effets of these tornadoes were wrought 

 in the Biwa-sawa and its vicinity. Originating at the old crater, 

 Xumano-taira, this glen, the deepest and widest in Bandai-san, des- 

 cends directly and in an unbroken line to the villages Shibutani and 

 Shirakijö. Notwithstanding the comparatively great distance of these 

 two villages from the crater, the wind-blasts were impelled towards 

 them, down the Biwa-sawa, with prodigious force, and wrought havoc 

 from which places a little out of the direct course of the wind were 

 happily exempt. In the woods on the S.E. slope of Akahani-yama 

 and on the west side of Biwa-sawa, the effects of the storm were es- 

 pecially striking; trees with a diameter of more than a metre had 

 been laid prostrate on the ground in thousands; and a forest was 

 thickly encumbered with fallen trees. Estimating the probable ve- 

 locity of the wind from the effects produced in this localtiy, Mr. Y. 

 Wada, of the Imperial Meteorological Observatory, thinks it can 

 hardly have been less than 40 metres per second, or about 90 miles per 

 hour. Here as everywhere else, the trees fell with their heads point- 

 ing away from the crater, showing clearly that the wind radiated in 

 straight lines from its origin. There is no evidence of whirlwinds 

 or eddy movements of any kind. The cause and effect of the wind 

 in this locality deserve special attention, for which a brief topogra- 

 phical examination is first needed. South-south-west of the former 

 site of Kobandai stands the massive peak of Obandai rising to a 



