1 1 8 Whirlwind at 



noble efibrfs <o extcrminr.te from the 

 Ikcc of Europe tlicsc ruthless mon- 

 sters, v.lio liavc trampled wpoii her 

 relifjioii, carried licr children into 

 sla\ery, and violated every social and 

 civil riojht. 



The Turks, bein^ heterogeneous in 

 Iheir laws and politics, as well as in 

 religion, from llie rest of Europe, wlio 

 <lo not even acknowledge the law of 

 nations, can never be looked upon as 

 j-ig-htful dwellers on European soil ; 

 they are interlopers upon the conquer- 

 ed, whom their barbarities have never 

 been able to destroy; and ought there- 

 fore to be swept from the face of 

 Europe, and driven back to the moun- 

 tains and deserts of Asia, whence their 

 ancestors spread like a torrent over 

 tiie finest parts of the world, and 

 lixcd the seat of their g'overnment in 

 the noblest and most delighirul city at 

 that time in the universe. The Greek 

 nation became a non-entity; the good, 

 the learned, and the wise, fled fmrn 

 the Goths of the east, and sought a 

 refuge in Italy, whither they carried 

 the fine arts, and rekindled the llnme 

 of learning and genius, which had so 

 long lain smothered in the embers of 

 barbarism and Gothic darkness. 



For the Monthly Magazine. 



DESCRIPTrON «fa WHIRLWIND at SCAU- 



BOROUGH on the 2\th of JUNE, 1823 ; 



hy JOHN DUNN, ESQ.* 



AFl'ER a fortnight of very bois- 

 terous, and, for this period of the 

 yeai% extremely cold, weather, the 

 wind having kept stendily to the north 

 and north-east, and the thermomotcr 

 as low as 63" Fahr. a thunder-storm 

 burst from the west at a little before 

 three in the afternoon. One of the 

 reports was very loud, and awfully 

 grand ; the lightning, however, did no 

 mischief, and the rain was soon over. 

 After the expiration of ten or fifteen 

 minutes, and during the calm which 

 supervened, some persons, sitting on 

 the lofts of a manufactory on the 

 sands, were struck with the singular 

 appearance of the clouds. They re- 

 marked a heavy cloud, desccnditig 

 from the south-west, and a lower one, 

 scudding from the northeast, attract 

 and strike each other «ith great 

 energy, — the surrounding clouds rush- 

 ing in a whirl lo the same centre, and 

 then rebounding. 

 This scene of elementary confusion 



* Brewster's Journal, Ko. xix. 



Scarborough. [Marcli I, 



instantly arrested the notice of all the 

 workmen. 'I'he whole mass of clouds 

 was observed to be in violent agita- 

 tion ; an up))cr dense and dark stratum 

 seemed to be pressing a lighter one 

 down to the earth. 'I'hey were tiien 

 blended in one dense column, which 

 descended to the ground, jiassed from 

 the field of Mr. Tindall, in a direction 

 from the west-north-west, over tlie 

 hedge which forms one of the bounda- 

 ries of the plantation walk. Its force 

 was here so great, that it levelled two 

 very fine elms, of about four feet in 

 girth ; one being torn up by the roots, 

 and the other broken oft' at the surface 

 of the ground. The thorns and some 

 intervening trees escaped unhurt, 

 although a considerable fissure was 

 observed in the ground, which must 

 have been occasioned by the disturb- 

 ance of the roots from the impetuosity 

 of the wind. 'Ihc space between the 

 two fallen trees, according to my 

 measurement, was twenty-eight paces; 

 which, I conceive, will give some idea 

 of the extent at that time of the lower 

 portion of the whirlwind: for, the trees 

 having fallen across the walk, it must 

 have struck parallel with the fence. 

 It now passed across tlie young plan- 

 tation on the other side, shook (he trees 

 most violently, but did no farther mis- 

 chief than breaking oil' the summit of 

 one of them, which 1 attribute to the 

 great elastic power of these young 

 trees, and the less surface of resist- 

 ance which their branches would 

 present. 



The cloud continued its march in 

 majestic grandeur across the road, 

 passed some labourers at the waterfall 

 below the terrace, tore up some cab- 

 bage-plants in a garden on the left, 

 went over Ramsdale height to the j 

 sands, drove a machine containing a j| 

 camera-obseura into the sea, and 

 dashed it into a hundred pieces. It 

 now made a direct course to the east, 

 scattering the sand to the height of 

 sixty feet, whicli almost blinded a 

 person who was running from the pre- 

 carious shelter ho sotiiJilit in a bathing- 

 machine; the whole line of these car- 

 riages was turned over upon their 

 broad-side, and, the tide being up, 

 they were driven into the sea, some 

 without their roofs or a\ heels. 



The scene became now highly ani-. 

 mated and impressive. The jjcdes- 

 trians oit the pier, with that energy 

 inspired !iy fear, and the approach of 

 daugci , Wi're seen maUing their escape 



as 



