KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



At that hour the whole surrounding atmosphere began to assume a dull, 

 heavy color and then change to an orange tint, very unnatural and pecuHar. For 

 a few moments all objects appeared as if seen through stained glass. Toward 

 the southwest a very dark, heavy, green looking cloud was seen rising just above 

 the tree tops. This cloud was compact in shape, solid in surface and seemed to 

 overspread about two or three hundred acres of land. 



The outer edges appeared to be thin and vapory, while the space below the 

 cloud was filled with a kind of light, waving substance, resembling a morning 

 mist. This was constantly in motion, and as the cloud moved toward us this 

 stringy, root-like mass of mist was whirling and twirling in rows about as wide 

 as the compact surface of the cloud. This singular tube like formation and 

 motion was what first created in our mind the alarming impression that the 

 dreaded cyclone was approaching us. The phenomenon was more like water 

 running through glass tubes, than anything to which we can compare it. 



It was truly a beautiful sight; yet, no artist could in safety to his life, stop 

 long to study its beautiful conformation. From the center of this collection of 

 revolving streamers there came a balloon-shaped, green-looking cloud, or rather 

 crooked, smoky column, which extended about one hundred feet in the air — this 

 is the cyclone proper. 



It kept constantly changing its position, motion and shape ; at no time did 

 it look the same as at another ; sometimes funnel-shaped, larger at the top, then 

 inverted and larger at the bottom. It came wriggling, jumping, whirling and 

 twisting like a great, green snake, darting out a score of glistening fangs. These 

 antennae -shaped things were bright and clear, but in a few moments went out of 

 sight behind the enveloping clouds, which were struggling to embrace the cyclone. 

 There had been very little lightning and only a few low rumblings of thunder. 

 Scarcely enough rain fell, from first to last, to lay the dust, and no rain at all 

 during the cyclone. The cyclone was right on us before we noticed any unusual 

 •force of wind. The wind had been blowing as much from one point as another. 

 When this cloud had come out clearly to view and transformed itself, as we 

 have related, another cloud, not so large and in no way, save color, like the first, 

 was seen moving from a point far south of west. 



The two were approaching with astonishing rapidity. Presently they seemed 

 to be converging, and in a few minutes they met. Before they met the lightning 

 played from the back of one to the other, like fiery serpents. After they met 

 all definite shape was lost. The color of the whole mass was a little darker, and 

 all the clouds and parts of clouds were jumbled up together, and rolling and 

 boiling around in the sky. In a few moments two of the most vivid flashes of 

 lightning I ever beheld descended from mid-sky to the earth. These strokes 

 were aoout one hundred yards apart, and were simultaneous. 



Not until those strokes did the terrible roaring of the cyclone commence. 

 There had been from the first a low rumbling and muttering, but no well-defined 

 roar. This increased for perhaps one and one-half minutes, until it was a 

 deafening sound, something that made by freight trains crossing bridges, only 



