614 Tornadoes of Kansas and Missouri. [September, 
number of persons injured, or the loss of life.* These two 
tornadoes we have named from the towns where they did 
the most damage, and will treat them as follows : — 
The Lee’s Summit tornado seems to have originated near 
Belton, Cass county, Missouri. In the afternoon of May 30, 
1879, there was a heavy shower at Belton, accompanied 
with hail, while further east another heavy storm was 
raging. Late in the afternoon these two storms seemed to 
unite to form the tornado, which passed off in a north- 
easterly direction. At Raymore, Cass county, several 
persons state that they saw the clouds gradually approach 
each other, forming two funnels in the air at the same time, 
which seemed to approach and play around each other, and 
then unite to form one mighty column, which swayed and 
rocked to and fro like a huge balloon, with the roaring and 
rushing of a thousand locomotives, as it passed on its way, 
levelling everything before it. 
At Lee’s Summit the people report the weather, on the 
afternoon of the 30th of May, as very sultry and oppressive, 
with a warm wind blowing from the south. Toward 
evening a cold current of air came down from the north-west, 
accompanied with hail and some rain. About six o’clock a 
black cloud from the south-west suddenly burst upon them, 
and the tornado swept by about two miles south of the town. 
A correspondent, who visited the path of the tornado, reports 
that everything in the shape of vegetable life was mowed 
clean, and the ground torn up in places, especially on hill- 
sides, as if hundreds of men with shovels had dug it up for 
a road-bed of some giant railroad. The largest trees were 
twisted off close to the ground like pipe-stems, or taken up 
by the roots and carried for hundreds of yards, and then 
dashed to the ground and splintered, in some cases, as fine 
as kindling wood. Ponderous rocks were hurled from their 
beds hundreds of yards and broken into fragments. Build- 
ings and fences were swept away, and timbers carried in 
some instances over a mile and driven endwise several feet 
into the hard earth. Animals are reported as having 
been taken up and carried some distance, and let down 
uninjured. 
The people at Blue Springs, about twelve miles north-east 
of Lee’s Summit, liken the tornado to a huge tower of inky 
* I take pleasure in acknowledging my obligations to various persons 
for assistance furnished in reference to the May tornadoes, especially to 
Dr. F. A. Ballard and Mr. Charles H. Clark, of Independence, Missouri, and 
to Dr. Isaac B. Smith, of Frankfort, Kansas, and also to Miss Kate Slosson, a 
pupil of Mrs. Clara Hoffman, Principal of the Lathrop School, Kansas City. 
