210 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
around and about to rush in to fill the vacuum, or better, to prevent a vacuum, 
for we can never have a vacuum in open nature, as in order to secure that we 
must have some artificial barrier whereby the air may be prevented from entering 
the would-be vacuum. ‘The vulgar phrase ‘‘just before she does she doesn’t,” 
well represents nature in her struggle to create a vacuum. With her, to attain 
the object that she is ever striving for is an impossibility, and through this impos- 
sibility she accomplishes other and greater physical phenomena that keep her ever 
fresh and impart renewed vigor to her numerous and varied subjects. 
The ‘‘ Typhoon” is the center of the area of low-barometer, or the center of 
the storm, for it is only at this place that the direction of the wind may be upward 
from the earth, whirling clouds of dust, the center being the point where the 
‘‘whirling,”’ if any, takes place as well as the ‘‘upward-motion.” For at the center 
is where the winds from all points of the compass on all sides of the storm must 
meet. I was once in the center of an area of low-barometer in the Gulf of Mex- 
ico. The wind was from every quarter and had this whirling motion here spoken 
of—the upper part of the main-mast of the ship was instantly, in the twinkling of 
an eye—twisted from its place, where it had been so firmly hela by the strong 
shrouds. 
Could we have an ample number of stations in a country where these ‘‘ Ty- 
phoons” are said to occur, we would not only see this effect at its very center, but 
at a great distance, from all sides, see a rush of air toward the spot where this 
commotion takes place. The ‘‘ Typhoon” is more apt to represent the peculiar 
and intense features of an area of low-barometer in hot or equatorial countries. 
Still the cause and principles that govern it are not different from the ‘‘ Tornado” 
which is the name universally given to severe storms that are liable to occur every- 
where, and in the United States occur most frequently in our western territory, al- 
though not confined there, as such storms occasionally visit New York and New 
England. ‘To fully understand the Tornado, one must bear in mind the fact that 
wind under the pressure of a hundred miles an hour or more, will become quite 
solidified and will bear along with it objects of great specific gravity. In this re 
spect it much resembles water in great and forcible commotion, as in a storm or 
freshet. We well know that stone is not buoyantin water when the water is in its 
normal condition, yet when great storms occur along our Atlantic coasts large 
stones of three and four tons weight are borne from their places in sea-walls and 
transported quite a distance. When that dam gave away in Connecticut, some 
few years ago, stones of immense weight were transported upon the condensed 
floods for a number of miles. 
When a Tornado takes place, the air rushing along a narrow way and being 
condensed by its great speed becomes, as it were,a thing of life and may even, and 
does frequently represent an immense serpent going over the ground—dirt, stones 
and loose materials generally, that lie along its path being swept along with the 
mighty current. But weare told, that the Tornado has a whirling processive and 
even bounding motion. This is not at all strange. Unimpeded air, or what may 
