52 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
IMB TE ORONO Ne 
THE TORNADOES OF APRIL 18, 1880. 
BY PROF. J. D. PARKER, KANSAS CITY. 
Again the state of Missouri has been visited by a devastating tornado, which 
occurred April 18th, and again the phenomena and calamities of St. Charles in 
1877 and Richmond in 1878 have been repeated. We observe sudden high tem- 
perature and low barometer, intense electrical activity and displays of enormous 
atmospheric force, with heavy loss of life and destruction of property. The 
aérial disturbance seems to have been very general over the western portion of 
the continent, from the Ohio valley to the Pacific coast and from the Lakes to 
the Gulf, but,:so far as can be now ascertained, the most direct and well-marked 
line of destructive force extended from the Indian Territory, near the Arkansas 
River, northeastwardly, by way of Fort Smith and Fayetteville, Arkansas, 
Springfield, Marshfield, Russellville, Jefferson City, New Bloomfield, and Fulton, 
Mo., toward and to Jacksonville, Ils. Whether the other disturbances were from 
independent causes, or were offshoots of the same storm, is uncertain. 
Besides the destruction of property and Joss of hundreds of lives on this line 
at Marshfield, which is the county seat of Webster county, 215 miles southwest of 
St. Louis, on a plateau of the Ozark Mountains, though not particularly exposed by 
its elevation, great damage was done at Fayetteville, Arkansas, (though by an 
error, probably, the tornado is reported to have struck Marshfield and other 
points north and east of it several hours before it reached Fayetteville); also at 
Oak Bower, Ark., near the line between Arkansas and the Indian Territory, New 
Bloomfield, etc., all of which has been fully detailed by the daily papers. 
On the same day, but in the morning, a fierce storm was raging in Kansas, 
the velocity of the wind at Lawrence reaching 80 miles an hour, the greatest ever 
recorded there. At Leavenworth the U. S. signal officer recorded 60 miles an 
hour, while at all neighboring points the fury of the storm was almost unprece- 
dented. The barometer at the U. S. signal station at Leavenworth marked the 
greatest depression ever noted there, viz.: 29.04, corrected to sea level. The 
amount of sheet or ‘‘heat” lightning was so great in the western sky that many 
of the people of Leavenworth thought that Lawrence was on fire. 
At this city the storm of Sunday morning was light compared with that of the 
evening, though throughout the whole day there was an alternation of wind, hail 
and rain storms, culminating in a gale at mght which did some damage to roofs 
and fences. The maximum temperature was 82° and the minimum depression of 
the barometer 29.20. 
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