The Manchester journal. [volume] (Manchester, Vt.) 1861-current, 1878-05-02
CYCLONES AND TotNADoEs.


Prof. Tice of st. Louis wrote to the Re
publican Of that city striking letter sug-
gested by the cyclone which destroyed
part Of the railroad bridge at Omaha. A
dense black cloud came down stream,
carrying forward water column stand.
ing on the river with its head in the
clouds. In front the air Is filled with
hail, streams of fire run along the iron
bars and columns of the bridge; but the
moment the whirling water column
strikes II the whole is lit up by blind
ing electric glare. the bridge vanishes,
shoots up to great height above the
piers, and then is dashed with inconceiv
able velocity back into the river. Large
stones are torn out of the riP-rapping,
and shoot up perpendicularly sixty feet
to the top of the railroad grade. Such is
the testimony of John Pierson, Scandi-
navlan, and an uneducated and, therefore,
unprejudiced man, who was practically
the only witness OF the imposing aud ter
rible spectacle, and who says he thought
the end of the world had come.
Pierson is not laboring under an illu-
sion; he reports truly what he saw and
what actually took place. | was charged
with laboring under an illusion, when,
in the summer of 1858, asserted that the
steeple of the Baptist church, corner OF
Sixth aud Locust streets, st. Louis, first
shot up into the cloud. Not until the
architect declared that II must have been
so, and could not have been otherwise,
was the correctness of my statement adj
mitted. The architects opinion was
based upon the impregnable fact that the
steepe, when constructed, was let down
by braces twelve feet long into the tower,
and this braced frame was pulled up and
out without disturbing stone in the
tower. The large stone cross in the Cal
vary cemetery, weighing several tons,
that went down in the North St. Louis
tornado last year, went up first, for
there was the upright iron dowel that
had been in the socket of the shaft, testi
tying aud proving that such was tie case,
Houses always 60 down when caught ia
the vortex Of a tornado, but those caught
In the center, as was Lewis Colts at Mt.
Carmel, invariably first got up, When in
the East St. Louis tornado, The cloud
snatched up a locomotive, carried 1t over
pond and dropped Il down, right side
up, the wise by tradition poohed poohed
at the assertion that it was carried, aud
declared that il was blown into the pond,
Notwithstanding not trace Of such &C.
ton could be seen in the smooth aud lev.
ell sand over which II must have rolled If
such had been the fact. The objection
that not sll the lightning in the country
could lift up the bridge, each span
weighing from five TO ten thousand tons,
is without force. How did II happen,
then, that the tiny electric cloud that was
arrested over Langley pond, South Caro-.
lima, on The 18th Of August, 1874,
formed wstcrspout, which lasted for
about ten minutes, IN which time 1t lifted
over 2i4 900 tons Of water, and the cloud,
now immensely enlarged and distended,
walked of without spilling dropi
That this was fact is attesied by the
railroad engineer, who was constructing
a railroad across the arm Of the pond, and
who, Just before the occurrence, had pat
down marks showing the height 0i the
wafer. He found the cloud had lowered
The pond 3 rs inches, and That the pond
covered an area Of 200 acres.
On the Omaha bridge flames Of drs
slreamed along on every bar, post aad
column before the eyeionic column al
preached. saw ihls phenomenon on the
Missouri Pscidc railroad 10 the terrific
thunderstorm Of the night Of June u,
1872. A blue bazs surged along the
rails, which gave of brilliant explosion
every time thst cloud discharged. This
blue fame, the Characteristic color Of
negative eIectrieity,was invoked BY tie
induellye action Of the positive cloud.
/ TIE streams Of Gre on the bridge were
the effects Of The iBdneilve action Of The
positive cloud that carried The hail, wiBd,
terrific lightning and ihnnder that pre-.