298 ACCOUNT OF A TORNADO WHICH PASSED 



unobstructed view of the country opposite. Mr Tillinghast alleges 

 that his attention was at first attracted by seeing to the westward a 

 huge inverted cone, of extremely dark vapour, which extended from 

 the clouds to the earth. In the contortions and spiral movements 

 of its lower extremity, this cone was conceived to resem.ble the 

 proboscis of an enormous elephant, moving about in search of food. 

 Sometimes it was elongated so as to reach the ground; at others 

 it skipped over the intervening space without touching it; but at 

 each contact with the terrestrial surface, or bodies resting thereon, 

 a cloud of dust, intermingled with their fragments, was seen to rise 

 within the vortex. To those who were sufficiently near to the meteor, 

 a fearful explanation of these appearances was simultaneously evident. 

 Ponds were partially exhausted. Trees uprooted or deprived of their 

 leaves or branches. Houses were unroofed, or uplifted and then 

 dashed to pieces. Farms were robbed of their grain, potatoes, fruit- 

 trees or poultry : nor were human beings secure from being carried 

 aloft, and more or less injured by subsequent descent. It was alleged 

 that at Somerset two women were carried from a wagon over a wall, 

 into an adjoining field. Within the same village a cellar door frame, 

 with its doors bolted, was lifted, and then deposited on one side of its 

 previous position ; although situated to windward of the mansion to 

 which it belonged. This result was the more striking, because, in con- 

 sequence of their presenting an inclined plane to the blast, the doors 

 and their frames would have been pressed more firmly upon their foun- 

 dation by an ordinary wind. In consequence of the same dilatation of 

 the air within the house, which lifted the cellar door, the weather- 

 boarding on the leeward side was burst open, while that to the wind- 

 ward was undisturbed. 



About four o'clock on the afternoon during which this tornado 

 passed near Providence, there was heard at the farm at which I resided, 

 twenty- five miles south of Providence and about fifteen miles from 

 Somerset, the loudest thunder which I ever heard. It made the house 

 in which I was tremble sensibly. 



I have received from an estimable friend, Mr Allen, a most interest- 

 ing account of this tornado, which passed over the river, and there 

 produced the appearance of a water-spout, while he was sufficiently 



