The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1860-06-28
3fljstrIIaDrous.
[From the Cincinnati Commercial.
The Year Of Hurricanes.

IFrom the Cincinnati Commercial.
The Year Of Hurricanes.
Never before has our country been
visited by so many, or so widely de-
structivc hurricanes as during the pres .
ent year. They have rushed through .
the country with rcsistless fury, up
roofing trees, demolishing fences, hous-
es and churches, and even taking load
ed freight cars from their tracks and
dashing them to pieces The space
travorsed by the last great tornado, in
Illinois and Iowa, was fully one hund- |
red and fifty miles in length. The
force of the wind has been almost in
credible Tin from roofs was carried
over twenty miles; large brick houses
were lifted completely from their foun-
dutjons and twisted around in the air,
before being dashed to fragments upon
the ground. Churches were demolish-
ed with a single thuudergust, and the
whirling and swapping of whole forests
Of trees, as they were caught up in the
folds of the tremendous whirlwinds,
was awfully grand to hear and to see.
In all cases the electric forces APP
pear to have been combined with the
atmospheric agitation The fearful We
locity and power of the wind-estima-
ted to have traversed space at a speed
Of from sixty to seventy miles an hour
was alone sufficiently terrific. But
when to this was added the roar of
the most startling aud tremendous claps
Of thunder, and the seething glanccs-
flash after fash, Of lightning-it is no
wonder that q scene was presented
which struck men dumb with fear and
alarm, and even made the stOutcst hearts
to quake. The awful grandeur of the
storm, as the whole "artillery of hcav-
en-" seemed let loose upon the stricken
globe, was indescrbable. Add to this
the groans Of wounded men, and the
shricks and prayers of terror-stricken
women and children, ending i'm a cata-
logue Of dead, lying cold and stiff in
every stage Of manglcd deformity, and
we have a picture Of human desolation
which transcends in horror all the con-
| vulsions of nature.
The physical laws and phenomena,
which are involved in these tornadoes,
have been made the subject of much
speculation among scientific men. One
result Of the tremendous elemental dis
turbances Of the present year will be
| to direct new attention to the investi-
cation Of the comparatively obscure
science Of Metcorology. We present a
few Of the facts and laws Of these storms,
which we have CLEANED from various
sources, mostly from Mr.. BLoDGET's work
on the Climatolog of the United States.
When the track of one of these tor
nadoes is carefully examined, it be-
comes evident that the wind has blown
towards different points at the same
time in different places, Indeed, there
can scarcely be a doubt that these hur-
ricaues are, as Mr.. REDFIELD, the dis
tinguished meteorologist of New York,
describes them "progressiye whirl-
winds" While they advance with a
speed generally not exceeding fifty
miles an hour, the velocity Of the
whirl in the rotary motion around its
own axis is estimated at from one
hundred to three hundred miles an
hour. They are commonly narrow and
Of brief duration. The great tornado
which destroyed the towns of Camanche
in Iowa, and Albany, in Illinois, was
only a quarter of a mile in width
though the length Of its sweep was con
sidorably over a hundred miles.
Tornadocs, properly speaking, as
distinguished from the hurricanes OF
typhoons, which prevail mostly in the
tropics, are usually limited to the months
of August, September and October
But in popular language, the terms
hurricane and tornado are used iudiffer
emily Tornadoes, though belonging t
2 the summer mainly, are sometimes
found in storms Of mid-Winter. Thu
term tornado is one properly limited t
local storms Of excessive violence, af
fecting a surface but a few miles in ex
tent, and usually while no storm of
consequence exists anywhere in tht
vicinity, but sometimes as the nucleus
Of an extended rain. Their leadinl
characteristic is intense electrical ac
ton. Great attention has been given Il
the special phenomena of these lorna
does, in the effort to determine thei
d dynamic laws, and the tracks Of sew
eral have been in past years minutel
It surveyed, defining the position Of pros
% trate trees, and Of all objects moved b
the wind.
. A spiral involuto movement along
Z line but few rods in width, has ofte
been found to exert a tromendou
i- force withoUc the slightest exteric
;, disturbance, and to exert it alike whett
N er a severe storm prevailed generally
or whether the air in the immediat
vicinity was perfectly quiescent o
% the whole, there are inexplioable pbr