Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1875-07-28
Geneva, Switzerland, Visited By a Cy-
clone and Hail Storm, and Almost
Totally Destroyed.
A Fearful Visitation OF Nature-Sheets
GfElectrie Fire and Deadly Car
tridges OF Hsil-StOnes.
Immense Destruction Of PrOperty-9nIy
Three Lives LOst-Peasants Left
Destitute by the Storm.

New YORK, July ga correspondent
at Geneva gives an account this morn
ing of the terrible storm which broke
over that city at midnight of Wednes-
day, the seventh instant. About eight
o'clock few heavy drops Of rain began
to fall, and at the same time the whole
circumference OF the horizon began to
be titfully illuminated by flashes of sheet
lightning, but there was no thunder.
Once only during the entire night was
there one terrific clap of thunder, and
that was when the storm was just over.
The lightning gradually increased in in
tensity, and became indeed actually and
without exaggeration continuous. The
entire atmosphere seemed to be an ele-
ment OF flames, and all this time there
was not the slightest movement OF air
in the streets. At about eleven o'clock,
small objects lying on the roofs of the
houses were caught uD and whirled
around as if by 8 cyclone; still there was
no movement Of the air in the streets.
AT midnight the tempest came, mainly
from thelJ uraIrange and from southwest,
travelling in that direction toward the
basin of Lake Lemon. As it neared the
lake it seemed to spread out into p fan
like form, with front sufficiently wide
to embrace the entire city. 1t did not
last much longer than ten minutes. At
the end Of it Geneva was wrecked Us no
army of besiegers could have wrecked
it in the same space Of time. The storm
came ia the shape Of 40 almost compact
mass of sheet of ice driven horizontally
before the tempest blast. In the first
instant every gas.lamp in the streets,
save here and there one spared by reason
of some protecting roof, was smashed to
atoms and eXtin9uished; but the City
was not in total darkness, for the masses
of 3Oagulated hail reflected blue light
Of lightning in a CHASTITY and OminOus
manner. Widows OF manufactures and
residences were forced from their fasten-
ings, besides having all the glass shiv-
cred, and bedrooms, aud staircases, and
saloons were thus thrown open to the
storm, and in q minute or two half filled
with masses OF ice far beyond the
immediate power OF the inhabi-
tants to remove, for the storm was
marked by the peculiarly that the hail
stOne5Iol Ice fragments ratneT, compact
ed themselves into a solid mass as soon
as they fell. On the slope of the left
bank Of the river Arno, in the suburbs
Of the city, the tiles of many OF the
houses were absolutely beaten to pow
der; stout partitions of wooden plank
were pierced by holes, such IS might
have been made by musket ball. Three
persons were killed by the fall of farm
hnIIgp 10 1oHi af1 ioSt
city. Vast quantities of small birds ale
being picked up, killed by the storm,
and the bodies Of several foxes have
been found. Geneva is surrounded by
pleasure-gardens,v vineyards and market
gardens, and these have been destroyed
as though charge of cavalry had
passed over them, involving the ruin OF
the poor and industrious peasants, whose
all is now taken from them as effecUu-
ally as though it had been sunk to the
bottom of the sea.