82 



minutes past five to be at the ice houses, near the north- 

 erly side of the lake, and see the cyclone come towards 

 me across the lake, pass by within two hundred feet, in 

 its course of destruction through Weuham, Hamilton and 

 Essex. 



My party were awaiting a shower to pass over, and 

 were standing in a sheltered spot admiring the beauties of 

 the thick heavy black clouds, passing over our heads in 

 an easterly direction while a lower stratum of air near the 

 earth was moving in a north easterly direction as indicated 

 by a vane on the ice houses. The clouds kept shutting 

 .in closer, it was growing darker and darker, the wind 

 blowing a gale, when across the lake comes a water-spout, 

 as I supposed, in the shape of a tin tunnel such as is used 

 in filling bottles, the broad mouth being thousands of feet 

 in diameter away up in the clouds, the small end but fifty 

 to one hundred feet in diameter touching the water. 



The water-spout in its passage across the lake was 

 taking up water all the while ; the wind increased in vio- 

 lence bringing a wave nearly three feet high along with it, 

 which washed well up on to the road near where we were 

 standing. A large dory anchored a short distance from 

 us was lifted into J^ie air, twisted around like a top and 

 fell bottom upwards into the lake. We ran so as to be 

 as near as possible, and were but two hundred feet dis- 

 tant, when it struck a gravel-bank and orchard just to 

 the west of the highway which offered considerable resist- 

 ance, when up go the gravel, large stones, rail fences, 

 hundreds of feet into the air appearing like ribbons, 

 twisting trees right out of the ground by the roots, 

 and branches fly in every direction. We watched it 

 move on until in three or four minutes it was out of 

 sight, when it strikes a plowed field the tunnel being 

 black with loam from the earth away into the clouds 



