294 Tornado in N. E. part of Ohio, Feb. 4, 1842. 
fired ; the feathers rose twenty or thirty feet, and were scattered 
by the wind. On examination they were found to be pulled out 
clean, the skin seldom adhering to them. e body was torn 
into small fragments, only a part of which could be found. The 
velocity is computed at five hundred feet per second, or three 
hundred and forty one miles per hour. A fowl, then, forced 
through the air with this velocity, is torn entirely to pieces; with 
a less velocity, it is probable most of the feathers might be pulled 
out without mutilating the body. If I could have the use of a 
suitable gun I would determine this velocity by experiment. It 
is presumed to be not far from a hundred miles per hour. But it 
is said that a fowl carried off in a tornado floats with the same 
velocity as the current, and suffers no violence. This is only 
partially true. There is abundant evidence that in the Mayfield 
tornado the wind, at points but moderately distant from each other, 
was blowing in opposite directions and with very unequal velo- 
cities. A fowl floating in the air would at one instant fall in with 
a current moving with an accelerated and the next instant a re 
tarded velocity. It might thus experience very sudden changes 
of velocity, amounting perhaps to a hundred miles per hour. 
The explanation here given derives confirmation from the fact 
that the fowls observed at Mayfield had both their legs and wings 
broken. Mr. Espy states, that he had been informed that fowls 
thus stripped of their feathers have not been killed outright, but 
have been seen walking about naked after the tornado pass sj 
Such was not the case at Stow or Mayfield, so far-as I have been 
able to ascertain ; and I have heard of no other instance in which 
the phenomenon has been observed except at New Haven.t A 
CO TSEM PPS OME TOO eae 
told me that he saw turkies walking about naked after the passage of a 
which occurred many years ago; but he added that they soon died. This was the 
first intimation I ever had of the fact, and he told it me as a strange phenomenon 
which came under his own observation.” 
Prof. ©. G. Forshey, in a letter just received, writes thus :—“ After the passag® 
of the Natchez tornado in 1840, | saw many birds dead, generally not stripped s 
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