WHIRLWINDS. 



107 



EFFECTS OF A CYCLONE ON THE COAST OF MOZAMBIQUE. 



measure them, and it is only by scientific investiga- 

 tion that we have arrived at the knowledge of the 

 fact. The whirlwind, properly so called, is a much 

 smaller body of atmosphere. Sometimes we see 

 miniature whirlwinds, even in our own temperate 

 land, passing along a road in autumn, lifting the 

 leaves and dust into the air and carrying them along 

 in the form of a rotatory pillar. In other regions 

 they exert a power quite equal to the tempest, 

 though in a more limited space, overturning houses, 

 uprooting trees, cutting a track twenty or thirty yards 



