TORNADO NEAR PROVIDENCE. 349 



In the midst of these bodies he saw some larger ones 

 which he recognised to be portions of boards, falling ob- 

 liquely. The tornado came within a few fathoms of where 

 he stood, and destroyed a row of buildings, whose roofs ap- 

 peared to open, and in a moment to rise up in the air. 



The whole house appeared to crumble, and to become 

 but a mass of ruins in motion, which one could see through 

 the cloud which enveloped it as a cloak of vapor. 



At the moment when the obscure end of the cone passed 

 over the crumbled building, all the debris appeared to be 

 shot into the air, as if from an exploded mine. When the 

 tornado arrived over the river, it produced a circle of foam, 

 about three hundred feet in diameter ; within this circle the 

 water was agitated as that of an immense cauldron in ebul- 

 lition. 



When one was at a certain distance from the cloud, it ap- 

 peared as a vast umbrella, of which the descending cone 

 was the handle, losing itself in the foam of the waves of the 

 river. The waves rose and swelled up as if by magic 

 power, when the cone passed over the waters. 



Twice he remarked a stream of light or of the electric fluid, 

 darted across the column of vapor, which appeared to him to 

 serve as a conductor between the water and the cloud. After 

 this lightning, the foam of the water appeared immediately 

 diminished for a moment, as if the agitation of the surface 

 of the water was calmed for a moment by the electric dis- 

 charge. 



The motion of the tornado was almost in a right line in 

 the direction of the wind [from west to east] and its velocity 

 was about eight or ten miles an hour. Although he was at 

 the exterior limit of the circle of the tornado, he felt no ex- 

 traordinary gust, he only perceived the same current which 

 existed, before the arrival of the meteor. 



He remarked also that the temperature did not appear 

 more elevated in the air neigboring to the borders of the 



