Litchfield enquirer., 1878-08-22

ToRNADos. Prof, Brewer, of Yale College has been spending some time at Wallingford studying the features of the recent tornado there He gives the results of his observations in Palladium, as follows:
 No one can tell what makes tornado. There are many theories concerning the cause. know of 800 persons each of whom has a different theory. In the northern Attitudes the rotary motion is always from the right to lett. The column is funnel shaped, the small part being on the earth. It sways from side to side frequently, and sometimes bounds like ball. The movement is either to the east, southeast or northeast. 1 measured the bluff at the lake where the tornado was form ed, and found it to be about thirty five feet in height. The cone rose up on this, and the damage inflicted shows it to have been from 400 to 450 feet wide. It was not powerful enough to uproot trees outside of this. It crossed the railroad track at nearly right an- gles, and about 700 feet wide. At Colony street it was 700 or 750 feet in width-that is, 1t was strong enough to tear down houses within this limit. From the lake to this point was the space in which it displayed it's great est energy. The cone was solid there, or nearly so, at its bottom, So that it's center was as destructive as It's outside lines. As it ap- l,SU feet, and over this space unroofed houses It twisted off trees over a still wider area. and further on at Elm street broadened still more. It's effects could be seen as far as the eve could reach through field glass. The trees on portions of the south line of the whirl were laid in many directions. The tomb stones in the cemetery were laid toward the east, but the tall monuments were thrown to the north. The actual direction of the tornado was east southeast.
 The tornado was not of unusual strength We have many such in New England I suppose we have them every year. They tear up trees, throw down fences, but as no lives are lost no attention is paid to them. If it were not for the fact that there was such a loss of life in Walingford, the tornado would not have obtained the celebrity it has. If it had happened in Litchfeld probably the news papers would have contented themselves with paragraph merely noting it's effects on fen ces and barns, for that is probably all there would have been to it. But on the plains at Walllngford there were number of poorly constructed houses and many persons in them In one very small building there were two families. When the tornado struck them there was great loss of life. If it had struck the town on Main street, or whereabouts, a large amount of property would have been damaged, but houses would not have been demolished as they were on the plains, because they are more strongly built.
 What the Professor says of the destruction of life at Wallingford being due to insufficient and crowded buildings is confirmed by the experience of New Preston No doubt the tornado was as strong there as at Wallingford, yet not life was lost nor was anyone even seriously hurt
 A box freight car got ''derailed" recently, upon the new Satans Kingdom bridge of the Connecticut Western railroad Neither tie roadmaster nor the train hands noticed that anything was wrong till the train had reached the other end of the bridge. Such an accident would have broken down weak structure like that at Tariffville, and the fact that the humping of the derailed car was not noticed in this recent case leads railroad people to think that the Tarifville disaster was occa- stoned by like accident