312 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XV. No. 38 1 



fair sample of them, and must suffice. Before remarking 

 upon these quotations, it will be of interest to bring down 

 such descriptions thirty years later. 



Signal Office Notes. 

 In making investigations of tornadoes, the observer was 

 furnished with fifteen to twenty topics of search, and usually 

 framed a number of questions to be asked each person. It 

 is also probable that in these answers all classes of replies 

 by the more interested and by those less so are mingled 

 together. Oftentimes the localities were visited some weeks 

 after the tornado, and when many valuable facts could not 

 be ascertained. To any one desiring a more connected ac- 

 count of these tornadoes, they will find them in the annual 

 reports of the chief signal officer for 1873 and 1875. I will 

 here simply make quotations without giving names. 



Iowa and Illinois Tornadoes of May 22, 1873. 



"Saw two clouds — one in the south-west, and the other 

 in the north-west — which appeared to rush together in the 

 west." 



" Saw tornado approaching like two dark clouds, with an 

 intervening lighter-colored space between them. These two 

 clouds presented a funnel-shaped appearance. It whirled 

 contrary to the hands of a watch. Heard some thunder 

 previous to tornado, but saw no lightning." 



" Heard it roaring a long time before it arrived. As it 

 approached, saw two funnels distinctly. Saw funnel on the 

 south side, which was the smaller, swing around in a half- 

 circle and join the larger one. When it struck the ground 

 it seemed to smoke, the smoke surging up like spray upon a 

 wave-beaten rock. Saw lightning during the tornado." 



"Saw lightning during the tornado, and heard thunder 

 above its roar." 



"Saw the funnel whirling contrary to the sun. Saw 

 lightning flash up and down the funnel. Saw a tree thrown 

 out from the top of the funnel about one foot in diameter." 



" The roaring was terrifie. It resembled the sounds of 

 machinery magnified a million times. It was a combined 

 ' woo-oo 00' and ' whir-r-r-r.' When the funnel came near, 

 it grew as dark as midnight." 



" Observed sheet lightning in the tornado several times. 

 When the tornado had passed about a mile and a half, it 

 appeared to stand still ; and a strong gale, with rain, blew 

 directly from it, so that I thought the storm was coming 

 back." 



"The tornado first appeared as two clouds — one from the 

 south-west, and the other from the west — rushing to one 

 point." 



" Heard roaring about half an hour before it came." 



" Heard roaring an hour before the storm came. Did not 

 hear it after it passed. Saw a cloud rushing from the south, 

 and another rushing to meet it from the north." 



"The roaring was very loud for an hour previous to its 

 arrival. Did not hear it after it passed. Saw no light- 

 ning." 



"It was impossible to hear thunder, owing to the noise 

 of the storm, which was terrific." 



" Noticed a very black cloud in the west, with a lighter 

 space on each side of it. Did not hear the roaring very dis- 

 tinctly until it was nearly opposite. Then it was an awful 

 ocean-like roaring." 



"Saw two clouds — one in the north-west, and one in the 

 south-west — rushing together with great rapidity. A whirl- 

 ing began right where they met, assuming the form of a- 

 funnel. Saw it whirling with the hands of a watch at the 

 distance of about two miles." 



"There seemed to be a dark cloud to the south-west, 

 another to the north-west. The roaring, like the whirring 

 of a thousand threshing-machines, was so loud that I could 

 not hear the breaking of the buildings." 



Georgia and South Carolina Tornadoes, March 20, 1875. 



"The cloud was very black, with a reddish appearance 

 beneath. Approached with a rising and falling motion, and 

 sometimes bursting upward, like dense, black smoke from a 

 furnace." 



"The cloud was fiery in appearance, throwing up, at 

 times, what looked like tongues of flame." 



"The form of the cloud was that of an inverted cone, and 

 its appearance luminous. The red cloud moved with great 

 velocity." 



rf irr* 



i-VaBa** 





■}0^"^\' 



'l.f.,i'-^'- f-^. '^" 



,g. s- , 





FIG. 1.— TORNADO-CLOUD. 



"The roar of the tornado was terrific, as if a thousand 

 locomotives were racing across the country at full speed." 



" Saw a bright column reaching from the ground to a 

 height of nearly a hundred yards." 



This tornado occurred just about noon, and it is not a little 

 strange that many of the observers saw a more or less bright 

 light connected with the funnel. A photograph of the 

 ruins of Massey's house, near Sparta, Ga., shows a remarka- 

 ble parallelism in the distribution of the dehris The house 

 stood directly in the path of the tornado, and was built of 

 heavy hewn timbers dovetailed together at the corners. The 

 south-east side was first crushed in; then the whole house was 

 moved ten feet east, and torn to fragments. The present 

 writer saw precisely the same lines of dehris parallel to the 

 tornado track in the Wallingford (Connecticut) tornado of 

 Aug 9, 1878. This illustration (Fig. 1) of a tornado-cloud is 

 given as a good representation of the phenomenon. It will be 

 found that nearly every picture has waving lines upon it, as 

 though the funnel were whirling, but the amorphous ap- 

 pearance here given is probably more accurate. Dr. Mc- 

 Pherson gives this description: "The horizontal whirl, con- 



