TOPLADY 



5837 



TORNADO 



Topeka is an attractive residence city, with 

 a noticeable lack of the usual poorer districts 

 and an abundance of fine shade trees. The 

 state capitol, a large stone building surrounded 

 by attractive parking, is the dominant archi- 

 tectural feature (see panel illustration, page 

 3203). Other noteworthy buildings are the 

 courthouse, city hall, Federal building and the 

 public library. The city is the seat of Wash- 

 burn College, College of the Sisters of Bethany, 

 a Protestant Episcopal school for girls and the 

 Kansas Medical College. Benevolent institu- 

 tions include the state asylum for the insane, 

 the state reform school, Home for Aged 

 Women, and the Detention, Christ, Stormont 

 and Santa Fe hospitals. Of the city parks, 

 Gage (ninety acres) and Central (twenty acres) 

 are the largest. Extensive railroad shops of the 

 Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe here employ over 

 2,900 men; the general offices of that road are 



Broad Hembury, and this post he filled until 

 1775, when ill health made necessary his re- 

 moval to London. 



TORNADO, tawrna'doh, a violent whirling 

 storm which occurs with greatest frequency in 

 the central part of the Mississippi Valley, in 

 the months of May, June and July. No at- 

 mospheric disturbance known is more violent 

 than the tornado; the record of twenty-five 

 of these storms shows that they caused a dam- 

 age to property of $15,000,000 and the loss of 

 1,500 lives. In popular language, tornadoes are 

 often called cyclones, but cyclone, scientifically 

 speaking, is a general term for several different 

 storms. 



Tornadoes usually form within thunder- 

 storms, and they occur on warm days, when 

 the humidity of the air is excessive. The tor- 

 nado cloud is a densely-black, funnel-shaped 

 mass pointing downward from dark storm 



COLD AIR FROM 

 ~ NORTH AND 

 EAST 



COLO AIR 

 WARM AIR 





WARM ^ -^ / / RADIUS 



AIR FROM _^/ /OF ACTION 

 SOUTH ANDWEST IOOTO sooMiLES 



WARM AIR RUSHING THROUGH COLD AIR FORMS TORNADO 



HOW TORNADOES ARE FORMED 



also here. Industrial plants include creameries, 

 flouring mills, packing houses, machine shops 

 and foundries. Coal is mined in the vicinity, 

 and the city is an important trade center for a 

 large, adjacent agricultural country. 



Topeka was founded in 1854 by antislavery 

 settlers from the free states. Two years later 

 the Topeka constitution was adopted by an 

 antislavery convention, and the Topeka gov- 

 ernment was established, but was subsequently 

 abolished by the Federal government (see 

 KANSAS, subhead History}. The city was in- 

 corporated in 1857, and was chosen as the state 

 capital in 1861. The commission plan of gov- 

 ernment was adopted in 1909. J.W.K. 



TOPLADY, top'ladi, AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE 

 (1740-1778), an English clergyman, author of 

 one of the most popular of all hymns, Rock of 

 Ages (see HYMNS AND HYMN TUNES, subtitle 

 Ten World-Famous Hymns). He was born at 

 Farnham, studied at Trinity College, Dublin, 

 and in 1764 was ordained a priest in the Church 

 of England. In 1768 he became rector of 



clouds in violent commotion. This funnel- 

 shaped cloud is the storm center, and the ve- 

 locity of its whirling movement is estimated 

 to be two miles a minute. The condition giv- 

 ing rise to such a cloud may be described as a 

 condition of unstable equilibrium in the at- 

 mosphere, with a warm layer of humid air next 

 the earth and a cooler layer above it. Some 

 disturbance in the atmosphere causes an up- 

 ward current in the warm air, and as the cur- 

 rent rises a rotary movement is caused by the 

 inrush of cold air from surrounding areas. The 

 whirl is so rapid at the center that a small 

 area of low pressure is produced, the tempera- 

 ture is reduced and condensation of moisture 

 takes place ; thus the cloud is formed. 



Nearly all of these storms move from the 

 southwest to the northeast. They generally 

 travel at the rate of forty or fifty miles an 

 hour, but velocities of 100 miles per hour have 

 been recorded. Though the path of the storm 

 is only a few rods in width, within that path 

 buildings are torn down, trees are uprooted, 



