THE FARMER AT HOME. 



433 



an adze, a drawing knife, a gauge, and, perhaps, twenty other arti- 

 cles, the cost of which is not much not equal to what they will enable 

 a person to save in a single year, if he uses them as he may do. 

 Besides, the time generally taken in such acts would never be missed ; 

 it is fragments of leisure about the season of meals, or stormy days, 

 when nothing else would be done. With such habits of attention to 

 the farming implements, and to the various fixtures on the premises, 

 whenever a job of work is to be undertaken, no delay is caused by the 

 want of instruments to effect it. This is the secret why some farmers 

 get along with their labor so much better than their neighbors. They 

 do not have to wait a day before beginning any specified operation, in 

 going after a carpenter, a wheelwright, or blacksmith, after the 

 laborers are personally ready to engage in it. 



TORNADO. A tornado seems to partake much of the nature of 

 a whirlwind, or perhaps of a water spout, but is more violent in its 

 effects. It commences very suddenly, several clouds being previously 

 drawn together, when a spout of wind, proceeding from them, strikes 

 the ground in a round spot of a few rods or perches diameter, and 

 proceeds thus half a mile or a mile. The proneness of its descent 

 makes it rebound from the earth, throwing such things as are movable 

 before it, but some sideways or in a lateral direction from it. A 

 vapor, mist, or rain, descends with it, by which the path of it is 

 marked with wet. 



TORPEDO. A fish that gives to those who touch it a kind of 

 electric shock. The body of this fish is almost circular ; the skin is 

 soft, smooth, and of a yellowish color, marked with large annular 

 spots ; the tail tapering to a point. Such is that unaccountable 

 power it possesses, that, the instant it is touched, it numbs not only 

 the hand and arm, but sometimes also the whole body. The shock 

 received most resembles the stroke of an electrical machine ; sudden, 

 tingling, and painful. Even if one treads upon it with the shoe on, 

 it effects not only the leg, but the whole thigh upwards. The nerves 

 are so affected, that the person struck imagines all the bones of his 

 body, and particularly those of the limb that received the blow, are 

 driven out of joint. All this is accompanied with an universal 

 tremor, a sickness of the stomach, a general convulsion, and a univer- 

 sal suspension of the faculties of the mind. 



TORRID ZONE. That portion of the earth over every part of 

 which the sun is vertical, or perpendicular, at some time of the year. 

 It extends from twenty-three degrees and twenty-eight minutes north 

 latitude, to twenty-three degrees and twenty-eight minutes south. 

 This zone comprehends the East and West Indies, the Philippine 

 Islands, the greater part of South America and Africa, and almost all 

 Captain Cook's discoveries, including the northern parts of New Hol- 

 land. In order to prevent its being burnt up by the rays of the sun, 

 Providence has placed in the torrid zone the largest diameter of the 

 19 



