AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
205 
When, from a sudden rarefaction, or any other cause, 
contrary currents of air meet in the same spot, a Whirl- 
wind is produced. Dr. Franklin gives an account of the 
formation and progress of one of these meteors, which he 
witnessed in Maryland, while travelling with his son. “ In 
a valley below us,” says he, “ we saw a small whirlwind, 
which began in the road, and which drew attention by the 
dust that it raised and contained. It appeared like a sugar- 
loaf, lengthened at the point, which ascended to us along 
the hill, increasing in size as it advanced. When it passed 
near us, its smaller end, which was next the ground, did 
not appear bigger than a common barrel, but it grew so 
large towards the summit, that at the height of forty or 
fifty feet it seemed to be twenty or thirty feet in diameter. 
The rest of the company stopped to look at it; but, as my 
curiosity was stronger than theirs, I followed it closely, 
and observed that, on its passage, it licked up, if I may use 
the expression, all the dust which was beneath its lower 
end. As it is a popular opinion that a shot fired at a water- 
spout will make it burst, I endeavoured to break this small 
whirlwind, by striking it repeated blows with my whip, 
but to no purpose. In a short time it quitted the road, and 
entered the wood, where it every moment became larger 
and stronger, carrying away, instead of dust, the dry leaves 
with which the ground was thickly strewed, and making 
a great noise between those leaves and the branches of 
trees, bending and turning large trees circularly with asto- 
nishing force. Though the progressive motion of the 
whirlwind was not so fast but that a man on foot might 
easily keep up with it, yet its circular motion was astonish- 
ingly rapid. The leaves with which it was then filled 
enabled me to perceive distinctly that the current of air 
that drove them ascended from below to above in a spiral 
line, and when I looked at the trunks and bodies of great 
trees which the whirlwind had enveloped as it passed' on, 
and which had left it entire, I was no longer astonished 
that my whip could produce no effect on it. I followed it 
nearly three quarters of a mile, till some dead branches of 
trees, broken by the whirlwind, flying in the air, and fall- 
ing around me, made me apprehensive of danger. I there- 
fore stopped, and contented myself with watching the 
head of it during its progress, the leaves which it bore 
with it rendering it visible at a great height above the 
trees. The major part of these leaves, escaping freely from 
the upper and widest part of the whirlwind, were dispersed 
by the wind; but they were at such an elevation in the air 
that they did not seem larger than flies. My son followed 
the whirlwind through the wood, on quitting which it 
crossed an old tobacco plantation, where, finding neither 
leaves nor dust to carry away, the lower part of it became 
3 F 
nearly invisible, and at length it entirely disappeared above 
this field.” This meteor moved in a direction almost op- 
posite to the prevailing wind, and not in a straight line; 
and its velocity was not uniform, as it seemed occasionally 
to be stationary for a few seconds, and then to rush for- 
ward with increased speed. 
It is not always, however, that whirlwinds are thus 
harmless. They are often combined with electrical phe- 
nomena, in which l ease they scatter destruction over a con- 
siderable extent of country. France, particularly in the 
south, has often suffered from their violence. In August 
1823, one of them, of great magnitude, ravaged the neigh- 
bourhood of Anet, in the department of the Eure and Loire. 
It extended from the clouds to the ground, and was 
formed of a thick and blackish vapour, in the midst of 
which flames frequently appeared in various directions. 
Rushing furiously forward, it rooted up and broke seven or 
eight hundred trees within the space of a league, and then 
fell impetuously on the village of Marchefroy. Half the 
houses of the village were destroyed in an instant; the 
walls were prostrated on all sides, and the roofs were torn 
off, and carried to the distance of half a league, by the irre- 
sistible impulse of the aerial torrent. At the same time 
the meteor discharged a shower of hailstones, several inches 
in diameter, which broke to pieces heavily laden wagons, 
and destroyed every vestige of the harvest. A still more 
terrific visitation of this kind was experienced in August, 
1826, in the department of the Aude. About noon, the 
clouds began to gather in the west, a violent wind arose, 
and a black and thick cloud appeared suspended over a 
spot called the Red Field. On the side of Fombraise, the 
clouds were seen to rush against each other, and to descend 
very low, as if they were attracted by the earth. The 
thunder echoed from all parts; a dead rolling sound was 
heard; and all the domestic animals fled to shelter. All at 
once a frightful cracking was heard in the west; the air, 
violently agitated, was drawn with extreme rapidity to- 
wards the opake cloud which covered the Red Field. The 
moment of their junction was marked by a loud explosion, 
and the appearance of a column of fire, which, sweeping 
along the field, rooted up every thing in its course. A 
young man, who was unfortunate enough to be in the path 
of the meteor, was whirled into the air, and fractured his 
skull by falling on a rock. Fourteen sheep were also 
snatched up, and fell suffocated. The column of air and 
fire then proceeded to the castle of Laconette, threw down 
the west wall of the park, made two excavations, removed 
enormous rocks, rooted up the largest trees, and penetrated 
into the castle in two places, where it committed the most 
terrible devastation. After having thus ravaged a con- 
