Miscellanies. | 403 
mentioned, seems difficult to explain, agreeably to the idea of a gene- 
ral whirl, throughout the whole area of the tornado track. The chan- 
ces are infinitely against any chimney having its axis to coincide with 
that of a great whirlwind, forming a tornado; and it must be evident, 
that in any other position, it could only be subjected to the rotary force 
on one side at atime. But if this were adequate to twist the upper 
upon the residual portion, the former would necessarily be over= 
thrown. Evidently, it could not be left, as was the chimney which 
called forth these remarks. 
During the tornado at New Haven, chimneys seemed to be espe- 
cially affected. One, after being lifted, was allowed to fall upon a por- 
tion of the roof of the house to which it belonged, at a distance from 
its previous situation too great to have been reached, had it been mere- 
ly overthrown. In the case of a church which was demolished, a por- 
tion of the chimney was carried to a distance greater than it could 
have reached without being lifted by a vertical force. 
It appeared quite consistent that chimneys should be particularly 
assailed, since that rarefaction, which, by operating upon the roofs of 
houses, carries them away, must previously cause a greatrush of air 
through the chimney flues. But this concentration of the air must 
tend to facilitate the ** convective’’* discharge in that direction ; since 
an electrical discharge by a blast of air, is always promoted by any 
mechanical peculiarities favoring an aérial current or jet. 
That during a recent tornado in France, articles were carried from 
the inside of a locked chamber to a distance without, when no opening 
existed besides that afforded by a chimney, seemed to justify the sug- 
gestion that there must be a great rush of air through such openings.} 
Dr. Hare also made some remarks on the aurora which occurred on 
the 3rd of September, 1839, in which he suggested that the electric 
fluid, producing the phenomena then observed, might have been de- 
rived from remote parts of space. 
* A “convective” discharge, or a discharge by “ convection,” in the very appro- 
priate language of the celebrated Faraday, is a process by which electricity is con- 
veyed by the transfer of electrified bodies from one excited surface to another in an 
Opposite state. is is conceived to be a good definition of the discharge which 
produces a tornado. 
part in the production of electricai storms; nor 
of an opinion which he had 
