TORNADO IN SrRUCE CREEK VALLEY, PENNSYLVANIA. 457 



and sultry, or what is called close. A fiieud who had been our guest, 

 prepared to leave our house a little after 12 o'clock at noon to cross 

 Bald Eagle Mountain into Stone Valley, wbich lies next to Spruce 

 Creek Valley on the south. I had concluded to go with him, when my 

 wife advised that, if we did go we should take with us umbrellas and 

 overcoats, for she was sure, from the feeling of the atmosphere, that a 

 storm was impending. Her warnhig was not disregarded in reference 

 to the protections from wet and cold, and we had good cause before my 

 return to be thankful for her forethought. We left the house about 

 half past twelve and commenced to ascend tlie side of the valley by a 

 steep path on horseback ; the air was very oppressive and our progress 

 slow. When we got about two-thirds of the way up the side of the 

 mountain we heard heavy thunder at a distance, and saw the rellection of 

 vivid light [iing in a northwesterly direction from over the other side 

 of the dividing ridge which separates the valley in which we were 

 from the one next on the north. These indications of a storm con- 

 tinued with increasing intensity until we reached the crest of the mount- 

 ain, when, turning around, we were presented with the appearance of a 

 dark circumscribed cloud at a distance of about eight or nine miles. It 

 occupied about 15 or 20 degrees of the horizon, and exhibited such an 

 unusual and threatening appearance that we almost involuntarily re- 

 mained stationary, as if spell-bound by the phenomenon. It was very 

 dense, and strangely agitated by a rapi<l vertical commotion near the 

 middle of the mass, while it was almost incessant!}^ traversed with dis- 

 charges of electricity in different directions, mostly vertically, accom- 

 panied with heavy peals of thunder. Its direction of motion was 

 diagonally across the valley from the northwest to the southeast. As 

 it came over the crest of the opposite mountain it appeared to touch 

 the surface of the ground; no clear sky was seen between it and the 

 earth. From the crest of the ridge it seemed to precipitate itself sud- 

 denly down the slope of the mountain, and almost instantly to hide froni 

 our view all objects on that side of the valley ; as it came near our 

 point of viev>' the character of the internal commotion became more 

 apparent, and when it was directly opposite us, or in that point of its 

 path which was at right angles to our line of vision, we perceived that 

 the wind, which before, while the cloud was approaching us, had been 

 blowing from us toward the tornado, was now moving in the opposite 

 direction, and that the commotion in the interior of the cloud was much 

 more astonishing. It consisted of a violent and very rapid shooting- 

 upward in the middle, turning outward and downward on the exterior 

 of columns of mist. The velocity of the upshooting columns was ex- 

 ceedingly great, even as they appeared from our point of view at a dis- 

 tance of four miles. The mass of the cloud had a dark leaden hue, but 

 the tops of the upmoving columns, where they projected above the gen- 

 eral surface, were white. The whole presented the appearance of a boil- 

 ing caldron violently agitated. When the tornado was directly oppo 



