252 Account of a Hurricane at Shelbyville, Tenn. 
prevent combustion. If the mortar should be kept at a red heat for 
some length of time, the wood beneath it would be charred, but 
could hardly be burnt. In case of fusion the zine might be repla- 
ced without injury to the mortar. 1 know of no construction for a 
roof that would be more completely fire proof than this. 
Such are my views on the subject to which you called my atten- 
tion. If they shall serve, in any measure, to remove prejudice, and 
allay unfounded apprehensions on a subject of great and growing 
importance to the public, it will afford me much pleasure. 
Brown University, October 1, 1836. 
Arr. VI.—An account of a Hurricane, which visited Shelbyville, 
Tennessee, June 1st, 1830; communicated to the Connecticut 
Academy, by Dr. J. H. Kain. 
Few occurrences give us such awful conceptions of the power of 
the unrestrained elements, as the agitations of our atmosphere. 
Accounts of storms at sea are common, and to those who make the 
great waters their home, they are every day occurrences. But, 
happily for the human family, such hurricanes as that which visited 
Shelbyville in 1830, are rare. The ocean is easily agitated and 
thrown into violent commotion ; but it requires a much more power 
ful wind to disturb the repose of those solid bodies which the earth’s 
gravity has bound to her bosom. ‘The effects of a storm at sea are 
much less dreadful and terrific than the devastations of a land hurn- 
cane. A fine ship may safely weather the most violent gale at sea; 
but probably no building or work of man could encounter, without 
instant destruction, the fury of the hurricane when it meets with the 
unyielding resistance of the solid land. Not only are massy build- 
ings torn to pieces and scattered about in astonishing confusion ; but 
the largest trees are twisted off at the trunk and hurled aloft like 
pieces of paper in an ordinary breeze. 
Some countries appear to be more subject to tornadoes than oth- 
ers. This is a well known feature of the climate of the West India 
. Numerous vestiges of hurricanes are seen in Tennessee. 
<a places you may trace for thirty miles the track of a tornado, 
which has prostrated the forest in its course, and piled up its ruins in 
large masses ; sometimes they appear quite recent, and nature bas 
not repaired the waste ; the splintered stump is still standing, the 
