32 Transactions Tennessee Academy of Science. 



and large pieces thrown clear across the track and left on the 

 other side. 



Further on was the Welsh place, a strongly built log house, 

 standing about fifty yards to the right of the storm track. It was 

 not completely destroyed, but so badly twisted and wrenched as 

 to require complete rebuilding. Parts of it were completely 

 swept away. The family was not injured, though articles of fur- 

 niture were blown or sucked out of the house and completely lost. 

 Chickens had the feathers picked off them here and elsewhere 

 and many of them were killed. Mr. Welsh stated that he heard 

 the roaring sound as the storm approached and opened the door 

 and saw the revolving funnel-shaped cloud mass, illuminated 

 throughout by a constant play of lightning flashes. As already 

 stated, the vortex of the storm did not strike this house; it passed 

 about fifty yards north of it, through a bare field where there was 

 a great deal of chert gravel on the ground, and it was wonder- 

 ful to see how the blast had scooped up and carried forward this 

 rough gravel and pelted small bushes and tough saplings a little 

 further on, beating off every bit of bark and small twigs, com- 

 pletely skinning them, so that the countrymen said they had been 

 burned (presumably by the electric fire in the funnel). But the 

 skinning was evidently done by the sharp chert gravel. Here also 

 were seen good sized cedar trees torn up by the roots and carried 

 along in the whirl for some distance and cast aside completely 

 stripped and peeled. 



Beyond this the tornado reached the top of the high bluff' of 

 Red River, striking it obliquely. Here also the blast descended 

 the steep, high bluff with tremendous violence smashing the tim- 

 ber down to the very water's edge, and some of the trees were 

 thrown l)ack\var(l as in tlic sink-hole at Anderson's. 



The storm then followed the river for several hundred yards, 

 destroying trees on both sides of the stream (which is narrow) 

 until a bend was reached, when it ascended the bluff' and pursued 

 its way across the fields, and tlie track c(xd(l be seen aliout a mile 

 further on ascending a wooded sl()])c and cutting a path through 

 the forest growth. It is said to have gone straight on and into 

 I\ol)rrtsf)n C<iunl\' ten miles or more. 



