TEE STORMS OF JUNE AND JULY, 1877. 279 



out under it on two sides. Then suddenly everything came crashing down 

 burying him, his partner, Mr. Moses H. Biddle, and others. 



The steeple of the Methodist Church on Fourth, east of Main, was torn 

 off and broken in two. The lower half was ripped asunder and thrown in 

 opposite directions. The upper half was carried upward and no vestige of 

 it has been found. 



A sack of flour from a demolished store on Main street was carried five 

 miles beyond the AVabash into Indiana, Except a small slit — cut perhaps 

 by some flying missile— it was uninjured. Debris has been found for fif- 

 teen to twenty-five miles in the track of the storm in Indiana. Letters 

 have been found fifteen miles north of Yincennes, or forty miles from Mt. 

 Carmel. 



I saw several houses, Mr. Steitz' amongst the number, that were lifted 

 and twirled, and then set down. The most curious fact observed at Mr. 

 Steitz' was that a portion of the brick wall, two bricks in depth and about 

 ten feet long, adhered to the sill of the house, a frame, and was carried 

 with it in its twirl. The house has since been shoved back, but the afore- 

 said j)Oi'tion of the brick wall marks the line where the house had been 

 set down. 



Many evidences also exist here of the hurling phenomena of tornadoes. 

 In Mr. Joseph Harris' house, a block or so east of Main, on the north side 

 of Fourth, a brick was hurled at an angle of not more than ten degrees 

 with the horizon through the wall of the house, passing across two rooms,^ 

 and breaking through the studding and plastering of the rear wall, with- 

 out breaking the brick. A small fragment of a brick came through a win- 

 dow and cut the carpet as if done with a knife. At Philip Stein's I saw 

 two rafters hurled forty-eight inches into the soil. One broke off about 

 three inches above the surface of the earth and was hurled against a pan- 

 nel of paling fence, which it knocked down." 



On June 23d a violent tornado struck St. Joseph, Mo., coming from the 

 southwest and destroying and damaging a large number of buildings. The 

 same storm also did considerable damage at Leavenworth City, Kan. 



On June 25th a very heavy wind storm, originating probably in Colo- 

 rado and extending over a width of not less than three hundred miles, pass- 

 ed over this city at about half after six in the morning, and resulted in a 

 general hurricane as it proceeded eastwardly with increasing veloc- 

 ity as far as central Ohio. Eeports from points all over Missouri, 

 Iowa, Illinois and Ohio, together with some from Southern Wis- 

 consin and Kentucky, show it to have been extremely violent 

 and destructive. Buildings of all kinds were demolished, and at 

 different points railroad trains were blown from their tracks and many 

 lives lost. It w^as accompanied with rain in many places and by 

 hail in others. It was probably more general in its character than any 

 that has occurred for several years. At the time of its passing this city it 



