292 Miscellaneous Intelligence, 



wards the soutli. The south portion of the roof was carried north oyer 

 a garden with fruit trees and deposited in a field beyond, some portion 

 200, some 300, and a large portion at least 500 or perhaps 600 feet from 

 the barn ; while the north side was carried just about as far towards the 

 south. A threshing machine of iron and wood, said to weigh 400 pounds, 

 was carried 230 feet south-southeast, and a sill or plate of the barn, weigh- 

 ing probably twice as much, lies near it, while huge timbers are beyond 

 it, one 300 feet to the^south, nine inches square by twelve feet long. Thus 

 for 500 feet or more all around towards the north, east and south of this 

 bam, lie its fragments, every timber and board removed from the greater 

 portion of the foundation, and even the two inch hemlock plank floor of 

 the basement of the west end of the barn, saturated with water, any one 

 of them a load for two men, are lifted up and thrown together in a heap. 

 This it must be understood is at the bottom of the basement some ten 

 feet deep, protected by the stone foundation wall as it should seem from 

 the direct action of the wind. Their removal can only be accounted for 

 by the principle before alluded to, that the gyratory and probably up- 

 'ward motion of the wind produced a vacuum which the air below the 

 basement floor rushed up to fill, raising the plank with it. 



Beyond this, at the distance of a quarter of a mile, in the field, 

 a slighter bam, technically a hay bam. Not one timber stands upon 

 another of this barn, nor can any considerable portion be seen at all, to 

 such an extent is it scattered. 



But with the exception of a forest tree or so twisted ofi" or stripped of 

 its leaves, and fences demolished, no more mischief was done, and at the 

 distance of less than a mile from the house of Mr. Warren this fearful 

 visitant left the earth. Its destractive progre^^^ probably did not exceed 

 two and one half miles in extent, but was uncertain in width. Those liv- 

 ing in the neighborhood do not place its width at over fifteen rods, and 

 we should be inclined to think that except at the large barn where it 

 seemed to expand its fury', its width was much less, say sixty feet. ^^ 



ttood 



ems 



elders and leaves withering in the sun, gave all the evidence tliat any 

 seemed to have of the existence of any such agent in the storm. It J^ 

 unattended with thunder or lightning or much rain, but accompanied, 

 as some sav, witli a little hail. 



pn another account of this tornado, in the Utica Morning Herald of 

 ihe 15th of June, it is stated that the whirlwind was not accompanied 

 by any wind or storm, a fact to be especially noted ; " it seemed like an 

 independent agency, traveling on its own account;" and it states also 

 that in its own intestine motion there was a constant revolution. The 

 absence of wind around and the ver}^ narrow track of destruction as well 

 as the abrupt boundary of this track, are much against a common notion 

 that whirlwinds are made by a rush of air towards a centre from the re- 

 gion around it. The moving power, both of rotation and onward pro- 

 gross were not below but above. Moreover it is stated that the trees 



witli 



green 



once observed a whirlwind of similar character but of miniature size m 

 te Middle Pacific with no land in sight to produce eddies in the atmos- 



\ 



