TEL STORMS OF JUNE AND JULY, 1877, 273 



the atmosphere this aspiration can, according to them, develop mechanical 

 effects of astonishing power. According to them the gyration which is so 

 characteristic of these storms is only an incidental matter, resulting simply 

 from the reaction of the ground ujDon the horizontal currents, that ground 

 being animated by its slow daily rotation. This reaction, which changes 

 by only 40° the direction of the lower trade-winds in their long course, is 

 made to describe many circumferences in the space of a few yards and in 

 the interval of a few seconds, in the course of these pretended horizontal 

 currents, whose existence not a single observer has as yet noticed. Accord- 

 ing to the theorists, these latter converge violently from all sides toward, the 

 lower orifice of the waterspout or the tornado, in order then to spring ver- 

 tically through this narrow orifice up to the region of the clouds under the 

 form of a column, surrounded by vapors condensed by cooling, and spread- 

 ing as they ascend. Fowth, on the contrary, I submit that the common 

 origin of all these phenomena is found in the upper currents, whose power 

 and directions are clearly shown to our eyes by the clouds, and not in the 

 lower strata, where an alni?)st perfect calm continually reigns. Not, of 

 course, that a calm reigns at the precise spot where the waterspout exists at 

 any moment, but all about it. Upon this capital point, so easy to demon- 

 strate, so frequently denied by observers, and which lends so much to the 

 solution, all the witnesses are agreed. This does not prevent the aspiration 

 theorists from placing violent currents, like immovable layers, around the 

 heart of this perfect calm, which the waterspout or the tornado does not 

 disturb for an instant in its rapid course. JNever have we seen in science a 

 similar disregard of facts ; a strange indifference which is explained only 

 by the influence of a very ancient and very extended prejudice, whose his- 

 tory I have traced in the Annuaire for 1875, and which has caused meteor- 

 ologists to replace facts by theories upon the stability or instability of at- 

 mospheric equilibrium." 



We will now mention several of the more notable storms of the month 

 of June or July, and as far as practicable j)oint out their striking peculiari- 

 ties. 



One of the most severe, though exceptionally local in its character, was 

 that of June 4th, which visited and nearly destroyed the town of Mount 

 Carmel, Illinois. Mount Carmel is located on a plateau at an elevation of 

 about 75 or 80 feet above the Wabash river, and about three-fourths of a 

 mile west of that stream. 



Prof J. H. Tice, of St. Louis, visited this place about two weeks after 

 the passage of the tornado, and we avail ourselves of the information ob- 

 tained by him from eye witnesses : 



"The streets run parallel to the river or rather to the bluff on the east 

 side of the town ; hence do not conform to the meridian and parallels of 

 latitude. Main and its parallel streets run from about fifteen degrees west 

 of north toward the same numbers of degrees east of south. Consequent- 

 ly the cross streets, Fourth, for instance, at right angles to Main street, run 



