THE BRUNSWICK LAND SPOUT. 317 



generally indicated that they were, subsequently to the up- 

 ward violent action, carried outward by the gradual en- 

 largement of the current into which they had been drawn. 

 The shingles and boards, just described, were cases in point 

 being found far beyond the trail of the tornado as marked 

 upon the surface. Rafters, which penetrated buildings 

 south of the track, entered them on the north side, and in 

 a direction inclining to the south east. Their descent, in 

 some instances, was with great violence, contrary to what 

 happened in the range of the upward motions; where a 

 lad, already referred to, was deposited in safety after an 

 aerial journey of one fourth of a mile. A window frame 

 and brick wall were, in one instance, penetrated by a rafter, 

 twenty feet in length, eight inches wide, and from four to 

 six inches, thick. In the passage of the storm from the city 

 to the opposite bank of the Raritan, no indications are, of 

 course, left to mark the peculiar action upon the waters; 

 though we have heard it stated, but cannot say upon what 

 authority, that the bed of the channel was laid bare, and 

 from the nature of the forces and their violence, we cannot 

 doubt that had it traversed a great extent of water surface, 

 it would have assumed the character, as it certainly had 

 iheform, of a water spout. On encountering, however, 

 the opposite bank, some peculiar effects were seen to have 

 been produced. The upper edge of the bank, especially, 

 was marked by two well denned stripes, each from ten to 

 twenty feet wide, and one hundred, or more, feet asunder. 

 Here, it was supposed, must have been the outer edge of 

 the aerial trunk, or funnel through which the air rushed 

 upwards, and as the tornado, in its onward movement, ad- 

 vanced against the bank, the air coming in on every side to 

 fill up the partial vacuum would exert the greatest force at 

 the moment when it changed its horizontal for a vertical 

 motion. The surface of the ground beyond this point 

 seemed, in some places, to have been raised, as if the air 



