1888.] occurred at Dacca on Ajjril 1th, 1888. 213 



and compound fractures. In not one instance was there a trace of 

 scorching. Mr. Kelly, the Resident Apothecary of the Mitford Hospital, 

 on whose statement I put much reliance, is equally clear that the 

 cloud, as he saw it, did not glow, and the appearance, as I saw it 

 (but this was probably only the wake of the true tornado), was a 

 low dark unilluminated cloud, throwing out sparks of fire, which were 

 no doubt merely burning embers caught up and carried along by the 

 storm. One of these was undoubtedly of this nature, for it was carried 

 burning into Mr. S. J. Sarkies' verandah, where he crunched it out with 

 the heel of his boot. These were no doubt the " balls of fire" noted by 

 the Nawab and others. The appearance described by Khajeh Amirulla 

 of a body of fire rushing out from below is more difficult to account for. 

 The fires which followed its course in many places do not require the 

 assumption of any fire connected intrinsically with the tornado itself, for 

 the people had just finished cooking their evening meals, and were 

 about to sit down to eat it when the storm burst upon them. The em- 

 bers from the fires with which they had been cooking were no doiibfc 

 caught up by the whirlwind and carried along with it, and thatched 

 houses, blown down over these fires, would instantly take fire. 



I am told that numbers of large fish were found on the Buckland 

 Bund after the storm, and there is no doubt that they along with much 

 water were caught up by the vortex as it crossed the river. The water 

 thus taken up, circling with the dust of the whirlwind, was worked 

 into a soft mud, and one of the most remarkable phenomena of the storm 

 was the way in which all objects within the influence of the tornado 

 were plastered with a wash of liquid mud. It covers all walls to a depth 

 of nearly one-eighth of an inch, it matted the hair, coated the skin, and 

 was ingrained in the wounds of the injured. 



The noise accompanying the progress of the tornado has been 

 variously described. It was compared by the Engineer of the Water 

 Works and by Khajeh Amirulla to the letting off of steam. It was this 

 sound which first attracted the latter's attention, and he put his head 

 out of window to see what steamers were letting oif steam at that time 

 of the evening. It was then that he saw the storm breaking on Jinjira 

 half a mile up stream on the other bank. The sound which I heard 

 from the Club verandah in no way resembled the letting off of steam. 

 It was a low sustained rumbling. I think that the discrepancy is capable 

 of reconciliation. What they heard was, besides the noise of the rever- 

 berations of the tornado itself, the comparatively shrill sound of the 

 storm crashing through trees and kutcha houses west of the Lalbagh, 

 and on the opposite side of the river. What I heard was the sound of 

 falling masonry, along the track of the storm from the Nawab's pahice 

 28 



