90 Account of a Tornado. 



Art. VII. — Account of a Tornado ; by Willis Gaylord. 



Having visited and examined the scene of the tornado, so well 

 described by Mr. Willis Gaylord of Otisco, Onondaga Co., N. Y., 

 in the Genesee Farmer, Nov. 10, 1838, we also can bear witness 

 to the tremendous devastation which that whirlwind produced. 



We were on the ground in September, about two months after 

 the event. Before the tornado, a region of 4 or 500 acres had been 

 covered by a dense forest of pine trees, many of them very tall and 

 large ; roads had been cut through this forest and a few solitary 

 houses were planted in it, here and there. Now we looked in 

 vain over the whole tract for a single perfect tree. Those which 

 had not been uprooted or broken in two near the ground, were 

 shivered and twisted off at different elevations, leaving only a 

 portion of a shattered trunk, so that not a single tree top, and 

 hardly a single branch were found standing in the air : there 

 were instead only mutilated stems, presenting a striking scene of 

 desolation wherever our eyes ranged over the now almost empty 

 aerial space. On the ground the appearances were still more re- 

 markable. The trees were interwoven in every possible way so 

 as to form a truly military abattis of the most impassable kind, 

 nor immediately after the gale, could any progress be in fact made 

 through the gigantic thickets of entangled trunks and branches, 

 without the labor of bands of pioneers, who cut off the innumer- 

 able logs that choked every avenue. We had before seen many 

 avenues made through forests by winds, prostrating the trees and 

 laying them down in the direction of its course : but never had 

 we seen such a perfect desolation by a gyratory movement, before 

 which the thick and lofty forest and the strongest framed build- 

 ings vanished, in an instant, and their ruins were whirled irresist- 

 ibly around like flying leaves or gossamer. 



Still it was truly wonderful that people were buried in the 

 ruins of their houses, and travellers with their horses and cattle, 

 were exposed to this driving storm of trees which literally filled 

 the air, and still not a single life was lost, although some persons 

 were wounded. 



We were assured that this wind had marked a track of devas- 

 tation for twenty miles or more, but this was the scene of its 

 greatest ravages. Two or three miles from this place, we saw a 



