Connecticut western news., 1873-03-07
sand-storms and Water spouts.


 Not less terrible are the great sand storms which sometimes sweep over the vast deserts of Africa and Asia. The Hungarian savant Arminus Vambery, who travelled through many countries of the East in the disguise of dervish, graphically describes one of these temp ests encountered while traversing the desert between Khiva and Bokhara. Having quilted the country of the Fur comans and the Oxus, his caravan pen etrated the sandy waste. The fatigue of marching was terrible. Camels and asses sank nearly to the knees in the fine sand. The second morning they camped at 8 station bearing the charm ing, name of Adamkyrylgan- (which means |" the place where men perish J. A dismal prospect extended on every side. Let the reader picture to himself sea of sand stretching out to the hori zon, on one hand rising into wave-hke hills, on the other smooth and level as 8 lake. Not bird was visible in. the air, not sign of living creature <on the earth nothing but traces Of death in the bleaching bones of man or beast, thrown into heaps, the ghastly guide posts of the caravan After five days of weary marching, during which the water gave out, they neared the limit of the desert, and all eyes were searching eagerly to discover shepherds hut or drove of cattle, vixen the leader drew attention to an approaching cloud of dust, and ordered every one to lose no time in dismounting from the camels. The poor brutes themselves discerned the coming of the terrible Tebbad," or sand-storm uttering loud cry, they fell on their knees, stretched their long necks along the ground, and strove to bury their heads in the sand. Vambery and his companions intrenched them selves behind the crouching animals, lying there as under cover of wall :; and scarcely had they done so when the wind rushed over them with dull clat- tering sound, leaving them, in it's rapid flight, covered with a crust of sand two fingers thick. "The first particles that touched me-" says Vambery, "seemed to burn like rain of fiery flakes" Had they encountered the storm deeper in the desert, all must have perished. Tebbad is Persian word, signifying fever-wind. It is most to be dreaded in the sandy deserts, where it may not only bring the torture of fever, but overwhelm every thing under dense volumes of sand.
 Less destructive in their effects, but hardly less terrifying to the beholder, are the enormous sand columns raised by whirlwinds in the sandy deserts of Asia and Africa. They sometimes as- sume the most fantastic shapes, and move with almost incredible swiftness. We can easily imagine that the super stitious children of the desert saw in these monstrous phenomena the mani festation of supernatural power, and that the whirling columns of sand and dust took shape in their minds as the dreaded genii and afrites of the Arabian Nights. Unlike thesgreat sand-storms of which we have just been speaking, which sometimes overwhelm caravans and extend the desert area over vast tracts of fertile land, these sand-spouts, as they may be called, rarely produce much mischief. M. Flammarion relates several instances where the whirlwind or tornado which occasions them has done great damage to villages in France.
 Analogous to the sand columns are the water-spouts frequently observed at sea and sometimes also on land. They are columns of cloud or water, generally in the shape of a double cone, having it's least diameter in the middle, and reach ing from low cloud to the surface of the land or water. When formed at sea by the action of the wind, they general ly begin to form at the surface of the water, rising gradually until they meet the upper portion, which nearly at the same time begins to- descend from the cloud. On land they almost invariably commence in the under surface of a cloud and descend rapidly until they reach the earth. At sea the spout or spouts, when formed, move in the direction of the wind, with a horizontal whirling motion; and when several of them are observed together, as is ire quentlY the case, they present majes- tic spectacle. Even when there is ap- parently no wind, the spouts may be seen to move along the surface of the water, sometimes in different direc- tions, and to bend and twist as if vio- lently agitated by some interior force. Some observers say that the formation of these spouts is accompanied by a dull rumbling noise, like thatof heavy cataract heard from a distance the part ng is sometimes followed by loud report. The column sometimes disap- pears as if it were drawn up into the cloud from which it depended, some times in a heavy fall of rain, and al other times in a solid mass of water popularly known as (. cloud-burst. , The sailors theory that water-spout can be dissipated by cannon-shot is not generally accepted.
 Many of the most remarkable water spouts have appeared on land, and these are frequently very destructive in thei1 march. We have an account of one which is said to have broken in Lanca shire, England, which for the distance of Q mile tore up the earth to the deptt of several feet, as if it had been furrow ed by some gigantic blow. In the ali tumn of 1859 water-spout burst neal Calcutta, India, inundating a grassy plain to the extent of half a square mile to the depth of six inches; two weeks were required to drain off the water.
 More Aid For Colleges.
 The U. s. House bill to aid the Agri o111t ,4ol e, h,