8 AS Whitfield on Tornadoes in the Southern States. 
This must have been about the rate of one whose formation and 
rogress for several miles I witnessed, but the spectacle was so 
absorbing that I entirely forgot to time it by the watch. 
another occasion, in the night, I listened, in company with 
several others, to the roar of one passing at the distance of two 
miles, and we all agreed upon forty miles as about its rate. 
In May, 1840, a part of Natchez was destroyed by a tornado, 
the most dreadful that has ever passed through the Gulf States. 
It crossed the river at two o’clock, P. M., and at 9 o’clock burst — 
upon west Alabama in the shape of a rain storm, pouring un- 
stationary objects, would be one hundred and sixty miles per 
hour. Subtract forty on the north side and it would be eighty. 
Now, wind moving eighty miles an hour will not nece y 
throw down trees and wreck buildings, but at a speed of one 
hundred and twenty or one hundred and sixty miles, it will level 
all obstructions. The most destructive energy, then, is devel 2 
in the south semi-cireumference of the whirl, and the diameter — 
of the gyration must be, in most cases, much greater than the 
parent path. The aspect of the wreck along the path of 
these storms is in conformity with the above analysis of forces. 
Where they traverse forests, by far the greater number of trees 
is the black column or spout, extending from the cloud dow? — 
