212 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
It is very natural that such should be the fact, for in such countries there is al- 
ways an abundance of loose sand to be taken up by the wind. A friend tells me 
that he has seen these clouds of fine sand three hundred miles at sea, off the 
coast of Africa and that the steamer which he was in, was fully a day in passing 
through this immense mass of fine dust that had been forced by the winds out to 
sea. 
Always when such storms as the late one in Missouri occur, far more com- 
ment is made over the mere auxiliary and accidental things than over the ger- 
mane cause itself. ‘‘ This storm took up trees by the roots—another demolished 
houses, fences, killed animals.and people—another filled the air with debris—men 
and horses were taken up in the air—it rained frogs and toads, ashes, dirt, stones 
etc., etc.—The tornado moved like a huge serpent—a blackened mass—moved 
in a very narrow path, destroyed this house and just grazed or bounded over that 
one. ‘The tornado of such a date moved along the earth,carrying everything with 
it. One of another date took things heavenward and terrible thunder and light 
ning followed in its_course.”’ 
We see the same diversity in storms at sea or in great freshets, and yet storms 
and freshets are not much unlike each other. The same cause that produced them 
five thousand years ago produces them now,and will continue to produce them so 
long as our physical condition shall be under the laws which governed the earth at 
creation and that govern it now.—Though the principles are the same and uni- 
versal,the details may and will vary with the localities and surroundings. And so 
with storms in general, whether on sea or land, and whatever lies in the path of 
the storm will be demolished, unless it be strong enough to resist it. 
Wind moving at the rate of a hundred miles an hour will have an immense 
force and will not permit things, whether they be trees, toads or stones, to lie 
around loose. If in the way, they will be taken up on the wings of the wind and 
be borne along until the force of the wind so abates as to be unable longer to carry 
them, and if perchance it be near the center of the area of low-barometer, they 
may be carried upward with the ascending waves of the meeting of the currents. 
In this country hardly a summer passes, but that we have from one to 
three or four severe storms, here generally called ‘‘’Tornadoes.’”’ ‘The term or 
name matters little. 
The papers on the 19th of April, 1880, reported a severe storm of this kind — 
the day previous centering mostly in the south-western part of Missouri, but quite 
extensive throughout the state of Missouri and parts of Kansas. One of the re- 
ports of the storm states, that everywhere along the track of the tornado was evi- 
dence of a wave of water flowing in the rear of the clouds, and that these waves 
or currents flowed in greatest volume up-hill, as though there was something very 
surprising in this fact. Water will naturally run down hill, but if there be sufh- 
cient force behind it, it may be forced up to the top of the highest elevation that | 
the earth can produce. When a hill lies in the path of a tremendous wind-storm, | 
it is similar toa rock or fixed object in a stream where there is an immense and rapid | 
