Miscellanies. 403 



mentioned, seems difficult to explain, agreeably to the idea of a gene- 

 ral whirl, throughout the whole area of the tornado track. The chan- 

 ces are infinitely against any chimney having its axis to coincide with 

 that of a great whirlwind, forming a tornado ; and it must be evident, 

 that in any other position, it could only be subjected to the rotary force 

 on one side at a time. But if this were adequate to twist the upper 

 upon the residual portion, the former would necessarily be over- 

 thrown. Evidently, it could not be left, as was the chimney which 

 called forth these remarks. 



Daring the tornado at New Haven, chimneys seemed to be espe- 

 cially affected. One, after being lifted, was allowed to fall upon a por- 

 tion of the roof of the house to which it belonged, at a distance from 

 its previous situation too great to have been reached, had it been mere- 

 ly overthrown. In the case of a church which was demolished, a por- 

 tion of the chimney was carried to a distance greater than it could 

 have reached without being lifted by a vertical force. 



It appeared quite consistent that chimneys should be particularly 

 assailed, since that rarefaction, which, by operating upon the roofs of 

 houses, carries them away, must previously cause a great rush of air 

 through the chimney flues. But this concentration of the air must 

 tend to facilitate the " convective"* discharge in that direction ; since 

 an electrical discharge by a blast of air, is always promoted by any 

 mechanical peculiai-ities favoring an aerial current or jet. 



That during a recent tornado in France, articles were carried from 

 the inside of a locked chamber to a distance without, when no opening 

 existed besides that afforded by a chimney, seemed to justify the sug- 

 gestion that there must be a great rush of air through such openings. f 



Dr. Hare also made some remarks on the aurora which occurred on 

 the 3rd of September, 1839, in which he suggested that the electric 

 fluid, producing the phenomena then observed, might have been de- 

 rived from remote parts of space. 



* A "convective" discharge, or a discharge by " convection," in the very appro- 

 priate language of the celebrated Faraday, is a process by which electricity is con- 

 veyed by the transfer of electrified bodies from one excited surface to another in an 

 opposite state. This is conceived to be a good definition of the discharge which 

 produces a tornado. 



t Dr. Hare did not conceive it proper to trespass upon the time of the Society, 

 to make any allusion to that part of his memoir, in which the three enormous con- 

 centric spaces occupied by the earth, the denser non-conducting atmosphere, and 

 the rare conducting medium beyond the denser atmosphere, are represented as com- 

 petent to perform a most important part in the production of electrical storms ; nor 

 did he feel at liberty to make any remarks in support of an opinion which he had 

 recently formed, that a hurricane is a gigantic tornado. Neither had he time to cite 

 the evidence furnished by Reid's work upon storms, in favor of a local force or gy- 

 ration, like that of which he had seen proofs, arising from the New Haven tornado, 



