ISO MY LIFE 



admiration of the whole establishment, which was considered 

 one of the sights and glories of the city. 



< )n coming out I was told something thai interested me 

 more than the wholesale pork factory had dune. A gentle- 

 man was standing at the door of an office close by, and in 

 the course of conversation with him, the subject of tornadoes 



came up, in reference to one that had done some damage 

 there two years before. There was a very large iron oil 

 reservoir a few yards from the office, something like the 

 largest-sized cylindrical steam boilers, supported on a strong 

 wooden framework. The tornado struck this cylinder, lifted 

 it off its support, and threw it down some yards away. Yet 

 our friend's office and other small wooden buildings close by 

 were absolutely untouched by it. This illustrates a peculiar 

 feature of these storms, which, though sometimes sweeping 

 along the surface and destroying everything in their track 

 for miles, at other times seem to pass overhead, descending 

 occasionally to the surface and then rising again, picking up 

 a house or a tree at intervals. The kind of destruction a tor- 

 nado often produces is well shown in the photograph of the 

 main street of Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, after the tornado of 

 the preceding year (April 14, 1886). This town is about 

 two hundred miles north of Sioux City. 



Leaving Sioux City in the afternoon, with several stop- 

 pages and changes I reached Kansas City at six next morn- 

 ing. After breakfasting there, I went on to Lawrence through 

 a pretty country in the valley of the Kansas river, the rich 

 alluvial land still partly covered with wood, and apparently 

 unoccupied. Several camps of emigrants (or migrants) with 

 waggons, etc., were passed. On the sides of the railway there 

 were dots, clumps, and even large patches of the beautiful 

 Phlox divaricata, with brilliant bluish-purple flowers. No 

 other flower was seen, but the trees were just coming out 

 into leaf, hardly so forward as with us at the same time of 

 year, though twelve degrees further south. 



At Lawrence, a small town of ten thousand inhabitants, is 

 the State University, w r here I was to lecture on the " Colours 

 of Animals." The buildings are on the top of a hill a little 



