A REMARKABLE SPELL OF WEATHER. 159 



clean and bare as though just plowed and rolled. Striking the Solomon river at 

 a point about four miles west of here, it left indelible traces of its visit. Huge 

 trees of every variety were torn and twisted as though they were but saplings,, 

 and the limbs strewn for more than half a mile over the prairie, while the greater 

 portion of them were denuded of bark as entirely as though stripped with a 

 woodman's ax. One elm, noticed especially, was torn from its hold upon the 

 earth and carried from its position nearly twenty yards, while some of its limbs 

 were found over a quarter of a mile distant. The tree measured two and one- 

 half feet through, and the spread of its roots, as it lay prone upon the ground, 

 was ten feet. The cavity left where it had stood would have buried a fair sized 

 house. Other immense trees were torn from the bank and hurled into the river, 

 while one and all were broken as easily as though formed from potter's clay. Mud 

 was scattered in profusion over the course of its track and thrown against stumps of 

 trees with such force as to pack it as though pressed by powerful machinery. 



About eighty rods from the river stood a strong log house, owned by Mr. 

 Peter Sullivan. He had the misfortune last Sabbath to have a team run away 

 with him, thereby receiving a fractured leg. He was lying in bed in his house 

 and a number of friends had called upon him, so that eight persons were congre- 

 gated in the house at the time of the storm. The place was not in the direct line 

 marked out for destruction, but was, so to speak, a side issue. The house was 

 built of hewn logs, a story and a half in height. The logs were about twenty-five 

 feet in length, one and one half feet wide and about ten inches thick. They were 

 dovetailed together at the end, and it seemed as though the house might stand for 

 ages, but one breath of the monster razed it to the ground, or more properly 

 speaking, to the floor, and I saw one of the logs forty yards from the house. 

 Nothing but the floor and one or two logs remained to mark the place where once 

 it stood; but the strangest part of the story is, that not one of the eight persons 

 in the house at the time was injured in the least. It stripped the bed, on which 

 Mr. Sullivan was lying, of its clothing, but did him no injury. About a quarter 

 of a mile from Mr. Sullivan's stood a small house, occupied by Dennis, or as he 

 is more familiarly known here, Dennie Morgan and his sister ; a small boy also 

 lived here with them. It seems that they saw the storm approaching, and were 

 about to enter the cellar for safety. The boy reached it, but the others did not. 

 Miss Morgan was found about fifty yards from the house, and he one hundred 

 and fifty. Every bone in their bodies appeared to be broken. The boy in the 

 cellar was uninjured. The house was carried bodily loo yards, and strewn in a 

 strip from ten to fifteen feet in width for 150 yards, in a semi-circulaf form. The 

 shape of the circle would indicate that the whirling demon was in the vicinity of 

 400 yards in diameter, and that Mr. Morgan's house had been about half way be- 

 tween the vortex and the outer circle. A peach orchard belonging to him was 

 completely uprooted, the roots and branches separated, the branches carried en- 

 tirely away and the roots scattered in profusion over the face of the country. A 

 few of them were seen over a mile away. Several other houses in this vicinity 



