276 THE STORMS OF JUNE AND JULY, 1877. 



posite to where Messr.-i. Biddle &Keneipp's large brickjstore was demolished. 

 He said : "Finding a storm was approaching I ran up stairs to close the 

 windows. Hearing a terrible roar and continuous explosions like rajDid 

 musketry firing during the war, I looked out and saw the tornado coming 

 up Fourth street. It was very black with white streaks like steam in it 

 but the heart of it was fiery red like a flame. I thought Mr. Biddle's 

 house was on fire, and that the tornado was sucking up the flame. 

 An instant more and it was as though a huge wave had struck a 

 ship and the wall of the house flew out as is it had been shot 

 away by a cannon," Mr. Sebastian Seller, whose dwelling on Fourth, 

 east of Main and beyond the Methodist Church was utterly demolished and 

 his garden desolated and ruined, makes the following statement, so I was in- 

 formed by credible persons. I was unable to see him myself for want of 

 time, the information reaching me too late. His description of the cyclone 

 accords with that of all others, with this addition : " It looked like the burn- 

 ing of dried leaves in a green brush heap ; there were bright dancing flames 

 all through it." Since these witnesses were nearer than any others to it, 

 and oince they had an unobstructed view of it, it is not at all surprising that 

 they saw more than any one else saw. 



The fire or flame they saw in it is not unusual. It is found graphically 

 described in the first chapter of Ezekiel, in the whirlwind described by the 

 prophet. Mr. Tooley who described tho tornado that occurred at Natchez 

 May 7, 1840, by which 317 persons were killed, says it was of a lurid yellow. 

 Chappelsmith who described the tornado that occurred at New Harmony, 

 Ind., on April 30, 1852, says, "the cloud apjDeared on fire at the bottom, like 

 a large j)ile of burning brush ; others say it was a cloud with green and red 

 flame, and others with green and blue flame. Mrs. Bissell, and others, who 

 saw the lowest point of the cloud spout that caused the tornado in St. Louis 

 countj' on the 29th of July last, say it was tij^ped with a fiery mass as large 

 as a barrel bowling along like a huge ball. 



Sergeant Henry Calver, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at Mt. Car- 

 mel, who investigated the tornado of Georgia and South Carolina that 

 occurred on the 20th of March, 1875, in his report to the Chief of the Signal 

 Service, says : "Dr. Charles Biddle states that it presented all the colors of 

 the rainbow, sometimes with considerable yellow, and again with the ap- 

 pearance of fire." Several other persons corroborated Dr. Biddle's statement, 

 as to colors and fiery appearance. The accompanying noise was a heavy 

 roar, and as it approached nearer a crackling noise was distinctly audible. 

 Mr. Calver adds, "the last mentioned sound may have been caused by elec- 

 tric discharges, as it would hardly be possible to distinguish the noise made 

 by the breaking of trees, etc., at the distance of two miles or more." This 

 fiery appearance of the cloud in the same report is stated many times and 

 by witnesses at far distant localities, but I have not time for more quotations 

 Many of the trees, and nearly all of those on the Wabash bottom, are 

 seared as though a flame had passed through them. I was informed that the 



