274 THE BT0B3IS OF JUNE AND JULY, 1877. 



from fifteen degrees south of west to the same number of degrees north of 

 east. The bluff, southeast of the town, turns a right angle to the west- 

 ■\vard, hence all streets terminate at right angles on the bluff. The tornado 

 came nearly from the southwest or about on a direct line with Fourth 

 street, which it followed centrally from end to end, throwing out spurs 

 occasionally that demolished buildings and did considerable damage on ad- 

 jacent parallel streets. It has been ascertained that the incipient forma- 

 tion of the tornado took place in White county some eight miles north of 

 Carmi and some thirty miles distant from Mount Carmel. It there de- 

 molished a house and wrought some other mischief. It made long leaps 

 and dipped down several times before it reached Mt. Carmel, but it prob- 

 ably would have passed without doing much if any damage if it had not 

 been reinforced by a heavy 'column from the eastward. This column, in 

 the form of a funnel, was seen by Mrs. Turner, who lives on the street 

 fronting the bluff south. She is a lady of more than ordinary intelligence, 

 and well posted in meteorological matters, having a son in the Signal 

 Service stationed at Bristol Bay, Alaska. This cloud she told me was dark 

 green : — very ominous, since this color indicates hail, and its funnel form a 

 tornado. This cloud moved westward behind the shade trees that line and 

 adorn Front street on the brow of the bluff, where she lost sight of it. But 

 she said it sent off a well defined tornado that swept up the bottom between 

 the bluff and the railroad bridge that spans the Wabash here; and point- 

 ing out the trunk of a large prostrate sycamore, she said : " It threw that 

 down before I heard the roaring of the tornado in the southwest." Mr. 

 Charles Eidgeway, station agent at the depot, saw this cloud coming from 

 the east, meeting a similar cloud from the west, and immediately a spout 

 shot down with fearful velocity toward the earth. Judge T. J. Shannon's 

 residence is west of the depot and about a quarter of a mile north of the 

 railroad on high land. 



Mrs. Shannon's statement, furnished to me in writing, is this : "I was 

 standing at my sitting-room window watching the approaching storm, when 

 I saw two heavy clouds meet ; and instantly heard a loud roaring. I thought 

 a long tiain of cars were coming at full speed. I soon discovered it pro- 

 ceeded from the cloud now looking very singular and whirling at a rapid 

 rate with shingles, planks and timber flying around in it. It appeared 

 not more than fifty feet in diameter at the bottom,* widening towards 

 the top. I do not think it could have been more than 75 to 100 feet in 

 height, and in form nearly funnel shape. Its forward motion was from 

 west to east, and seemed to follow a straight line as though a track for 

 it to pursue had been marked out for it from the woods near where it first 

 struck towards the town. It whirled towards the north.f It snatched up 



*1. The area swept by it, however, averaged three hundred feet wide. Mrs. Shannon's 

 point of observation wag fully three quarters of a mile distant. This accounts for its appar- 

 ent diminutive size. This also was at the time it struck the first house, fully a mile and a half 

 from town. 



t2. This statement being indefinite, I called her attention to it, and asked what she 



