172 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



tended over a mile south of the track and ran for miles north-west, 

 where it dwindled into a narrow crooked river with marshy shore. 

 My house was on an island in the river, and was reflected very 

 naturally. I would have liked to have photographed it ; the gentle 

 breeze caused it to ripple in the hot sunshine, and all it needed to 

 complete the picture was a vessel or two, but as I approached the 

 lake it faded from view, and I waded through it on dry land. 



Here is the cause of it, a layer of over-heated or highly heated 

 air lay along the prairie, and all the low land being lower than my- 

 self, I was able to look across the surface of this heated air, and it 

 acted as a mirror reflecting the sky or anything else near its " shore " ; 

 but as soon as I was low enough so that my eyes were below the 

 level of this stratum, it no longer acted as a mirror. 



There is a marsh just north of town that was dry all last sum- 

 mer, but one night after sunset, while coming home, it appeared 

 flooded again, cattle were standing up to their knees in water. It 

 was very natural looking but only a layer of thick mist, probably 

 only three feet thick in the middle of the marsh. Another evening 

 just about dark a mist came creeping over the prairie from the 

 north-west. It kept in the low spots, and came very slowly. My 

 house is on a hill, and by the time it was dark it appeared surrounded 

 with water. 



Another interesting thing is whirlwinds. I was reading the 

 other day that in the northern hemisphere whirlwinds revolve the 

 opposite way to the hands of a watch if held face up, while in the 

 southern hemisphere they revolve with the hands of a watch. From 

 my observations I would say that is wrong, as I have taken particular 

 notice of them to see if they all whirl the same way, and have noted 

 that they all whirled to the right, and noted that if a screw were 

 turned in the same direction it would go down, while the dust went 

 up. Whirlwinds are all sizes, from four feet in diameter by ten feet 

 high to fifteen feet in diameter and over a hundred feet high. They 

 can be heard coming across the prairie by the sharp swishing sound 

 in the grass, and can be traced by watching the grass bowing down 

 in it. When it travels over plowed land a column of black dust 

 rises up like a huge chimney travelling over the prairie. A small 

 tornado passed near me last summer. I will enclose a drawing of 

 it. It twisted a stable or two out of place and picked up a haystack. 



