350 PHILOSOPHY OF STORMS. 



whirlwind, though that would have been indispensable, to 

 produce the rarefaction necessary to cause an ascendant 

 current. The tornado, after having traversed the river, con- 

 tinued its route, carried off every thing which it met, and 

 he lost sight of it, in the midst of the vapors, and clouds of 

 every kind which obscured the sky. 



Mr. Tillinghast, who was on a hill, says the cone was 

 sometimes so prolonged that it touched the earth, at other 

 times it passed over spaces without touching them. At each 

 contact with the soil, or with terrestrial bodies, it suddenly 

 elevated a cloud of dust, and fragments of broken bodies, 

 which were lost in the cone. 



A pond was made almost dry, trees were torn up by the 

 roots and despoiled of their leaves and their branches, the 

 houses were unroofed, and the roofs carried off or broken, 

 the farms lost their grain, their fruits, and their fowls. The 

 human species were not free from this disaster. Two wo- 

 men were carried off from their carriage, and transported 

 over a wall into a neighboring field. In the same village a 

 cellar door and its frame were lifted off, and deposited on 

 one of the sides of their former place, though this side was 

 next the wind. 



This effect appeared the more extraordinary as the wind 

 coming against this inclined plane, ought to have pressed 

 this door against its foundations. The author of this ac- 

 count, attributing this effect to the dilatation of the wind, 

 adds, in consequence of this dilatation of the air, which 

 took off this door and the frame, a part of a roof on the side 

 from the wind burst open, while that on the windward side 

 was not damaged, (p. 363.) 



The author will add here that Mrs. Tillinghast, of Provi- 

 dence, told him that she watched the tornado after it passed 

 on to the east, and saw two showers of rain falling from the 

 cloud to which the trunk was attached, one on the south 

 and the other on the north of the trunk, and she particu- 



