294 Tornado in N. E.part of Ohio, Feb. 4, 1842. 



fired ; the feathers rose twenty or thirty feet, and were scattered 

 by the wind. On examination they were found to be pulled out 

 clean, the skin seldom adhering to them. The body was torn 

 into small fragments, only a part of which could be found. The 

 velocity is computed at five hundred feet per second, or three 

 hundred and forty one miles per hour. A fowl, then, forced 

 through the air with this velocity, is torn entirely to pieces ; with 

 a less velocity, it is probable most of the feathers might be pulled 

 out without mutilating the body. If I could have the use of a 

 suitable gun I would determine this velocity by experiment. It 

 is presumed to be not far from a hundred miles per hour. But it 

 is said that a fowl carried off in a tornado floats with the same 

 velocity as the current, and suffers no violence. This is only 

 partially true. There is abundant evidence that in the Mayfield 

 tornado the wind, at points but moderately distant from each other, 

 was blowing in opposite directions and with very unequal velo- 

 cities. A fowl floating in the air would at one instant fall in with 

 a current moving with an accelerated and the next instant a re- 

 tarded velocity. It might thus experience very sudden changes 

 of velocity, amounting perhaps to a hundred miles per hour. 

 The explanation here given derives confirmation from the fact 

 that the fowls observed at Mayfield had both their legs and wings 

 broken. Mr. Espy states, that he had been informed that fowls 

 thus stripped of their feathers have not been killed outright, but 

 have been seen walking about naked after the tornado passed.* 

 Such was not the case at Stow or Mayfield, so far as I have been 

 able to ascertain ; and I have heard of no other instance in which 

 the phenomenon has been observed except at New Haven.f A 



* At a subsequent date Mr. Espy communicates the following : '• The informa- 

 tion which I have received concerning the chickens and turkies remaining alive 

 after being stripped of their feathers in a tornado, is verbal, and I have no doubt 

 of the fact, though I cannot refer you to the authority by name. A gentleman 

 told me that he saw turkies walking about naked after the passage of a tornado 

 which occurred many years ago ; but he added that they soon died. This was the 

 first intimation I ever had of the fact, and he told it me as a strange phenomenon 

 which came under his own observation." 



Prof C. G. Forshey, in a letter just received, writes thus : — " After the passage 

 of the Natchez tornado in 1840, 1 saw many birds dead, generally not stripped; 

 but a wild turkey I examined was almost featherless, and lying in a field half a 

 mile from the woods. It did not occur to me to see if the bones were broken." 



t I am informed by Mr. Herrick, that the fowls there were said to have run a 

 few rods after being deplumed, but they soon died. 



