THE STORMS OF JUNE AND JULY, 1877. 281 



and was next heard of two miles east, where the roof of the home of the 

 Widow Westfield was taken into the air and carried hundreds of yards. 

 It then made a detour to the southeast for the purpose of wrecking the 

 house and barn on the old Thomas place, finding time in the same connec- 

 tion to severely, and probably fatally, injure Krost Thomas, a youth of 

 eighteen. Making a leap to a barn a half mile due east of the Thomas 

 place, which it succeeded in unroofing, it made a bee line for Lebanon, just 

 six miles east of O 'Fallon, uprooting trees and ruining wheat and corn- 

 fields en route, where the spire of the Methodist Church succumbed, as did 

 several small shanty structures. At Lebanon the presence of the tornado 

 was marked by one of the severest hail storms ever experienced in that 

 locality. The storm continued on its eastward course, making a number of 

 devastating calls." This same storm seems to have passed onwards in a 

 northwesterly direction, skipping over the State of Illinois and crossing the 

 States of Indiana and Ohio into Pennsylvania, and doing great damage at 

 Moore8ville,'Brooklyn, Columbus, and St. Paul, Indiana; Springfield, Mount 

 Vernon and Zanesville, Ohio ; Parkersburg, Ercildoun and Coatesville, Pa. 

 It is described as being from half a mile to two miles in width, and in 

 most places was accompanied with a very heavy fall of rain. 



On the morning of July 1st, between eight and nine o'clock, a storm, 

 which is described as the "most destructive ever witnessed in Eastern Indi- 

 ana," devastated the section of country between Middleboro, Indiana, and 

 jSTew Paris, Ohio. It is stated as a remarkable feature of this case, that "two 

 wind clouds, one above the other, rolling in northwesterly and southwesterly 

 directions, produced a whirlwind." 



On July 7th a terrible whirlwind struck the town of Pensaukee, Wiscon- 

 sin, twenty-five miles north of Green Bay, on the Chicago and Northwestern 

 E. E., leaving but three houses standing. The storm came from the north- 

 west, and passed on southeasterly, destroying the town of Coullardville in 

 its course. Its track was less than eighty rods wide, and its force .was 

 expended in two minutes. 



On July 9th a heavy storm of wind and rain passed over northern ISIew 

 York and Canada, destroying many buildings as well as crops and fences. 



Numerous other local storms have been reported, both North and South, 

 but the most important ones have been given above. 



The storm theories of Prof. Tiee are sustained to some extent by the ob- 

 servations of Father Secchi, who, in writing to a friend in Belgiiim, alludes 

 in striking terras to the remarkable connection between the magnetism of 

 the earth and the changes of the weather. He says that the variations 

 shown by the magnetic instruments are themselves sufficient to indicate the 

 state of the sky. Even where there is no great movement of the barometer, 

 following such magnetic disturbances, there are, especially in summer, 

 changes of the wind and sometimes storms. 



In this connection we copy from the Kansas City Journal of Commerce, 



