Account of a Hurricane at Shelhyville, Tenn. 253 



bark still covers the prostrate trunk, the branches and tops of trees 

 are still intertwined, and perhaps even the brown and decaying 

 verdure of the leaves presents the appearance of a premature au- 

 tumn ; the roads are stopped up and impassable ; fences and farm 

 houses have disappeared; the corn, wheat and cotton lie flat upon 

 the ground, as if a roller had passed over them ; in some places large 

 piles of drift are seen heaped against a hill or rock, and the mud 

 has settled upon and buried the vegetable productions of the earth. 

 At other times you see merely the vestiges of an old hurricane. A 

 new growth has sprung up in the woods, and you may remark the 

 uniform size of the young trees, all dating their age from the same 

 epoch. The bark has decayed away, and the large trunks of the 

 fallen trees are covered with moss ; their limbs and tops have rotted 

 and disappeared,' and the roots are still distinguished by the mass of 

 earth which was torn up with them, and is now settling down, and 

 still by the uniformity of their position mark the exact course of the 

 hurricane, the root always being towards the point of the compass 

 from which the wind blew. In other places we may find the vesti- 

 ges of still more ancient date. The process of decay has been 

 completed: even the trunks of the fallen forest have disappeared, a 

 tall, rich, and luxuriant growth has again overspread'the earth, and 

 vi'e can only read the history of former devastations in the numerous 

 hillocks of yellow, upturned earth, left by the roots of trees, which, 

 after being blown down, have entirely disappeared and mingled with 

 the rich, black soil in which they had grown. The tracks of these 

 hurricanes are not often more than one hundred rods wide, and vary 

 from a mile to twenty or thirty in length. You can never tell from the 

 direction in which the trees have fallen, the general course of the 

 hurricane. This is usually from southwest to northeast, but though 

 the trees at any particular spot lie parallel to each other, their di- 

 rection varies very much at different places of the same track. At 

 one place they have fallen with their tops to the north, at another 

 they have fallen towards the south, and at another to the east or 

 west. This fact strengthens the theory of Mr. Redfield, which as- 

 cribes to winds, storms and tempests a gyral form. 



It will be remembered by those who have read Mr. Redfield's 

 very ingenious essays, that he suggests the theory that the storms 

 which visit our coast rise on the Gulf of Mexico, and assuming a 

 gyral motion, sweep over the United States from the southwest to 

 the northeast. It is known to all who have resided in the great Val- 



