Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1882-08-03
THE PRAIRIE MONSTER.

Short of the frightful storms which are said
to sweep over the sun itself, there does not
seem to be any other force in nature quite
equal in energy and terror to the tOrnadOes
that so often swoop down upon the prairies
of Kansas, Missouri and Iowa. These whirl-
winds now deemed almost wholly electrical
perhaps because electricity is the prevailing
fashion in dynamites just now-have the quail
tiles and traits of the elephant trunk They
can overthrow a house or pick up slXpence !;
tear a full grown and massive tree up 10y the
roots. or strip the bark from the smallest twig,
and without iniuring the wood, as clean as
the boy peels a willow rod. Up into the fun
mel formed by the tremendous pressure and
whirl of the air currents, buildings, locomo-
tives. cattle, and children are drawn as readily
as gravitation pulls them into an opening IN
the earth. Residences and barns, large struc-
lures and small, are seized and ground into
indistinguishable dust, while fragile glass
ware and tender infants have been borne aloft
and set down upon the ground again without
the slightest harm.
The destructive tornado in Iowa, which
nearly wiped out the enterprising town OF
Grnnell, containing 100 inhabitants, differ
ed little, except in the amount OF its deStruc-
ton, from its many predecessors and contem-
poraries. \ roar. a flash of fire balls, crash,
80
less time than it takes to tell of it, the ruin
is wrought. For Il few hundred feet i'll width,
expanding sometimes to quarter OF mile,
and even mile, and for a hundred miles III
length. wherever there are obstacles and OBJ
iects other than forests, not structure re-
mains. Occasionally, however, it seems TO
have touched the earth and bounded up again,
leaving extensive tracts of land untouched.
The work of this demon in Iowa was pecu-
liar in it's horrible mutilation of the bodies OF
it's victims. A fierce battle with cannonadlnS
and shells could not have inflicted such wounds
or mangled the human anatomy in SO slngll-
| larly frightful a fashion. In some cases the
clothing were torn off, and the shreds LETT
clnging to the body had to be cut away from
the flesh. Dirt, sand, plaster and cinders were
ground into the flesh, and could not be wash
ed or scraped away, as if the body had been
mashed and rolled about under tremendous
pressure in sand and ashes. The bodies were
beaten into shapelesS masses; splnes were
driven into skulls and through the top Of the
head backs were broken eyes torn out OF the
sockets and left hanging down the cheeks
the entrails and organs of the body were scoop,
ed out of the body's cavities, and limbs pulled
asunder, The head of one beautiful girl was
SO so crushed down into her body, that it had
to be cut out. Even hens and prairie chick
ems were plucked as clean OF their feathers, as
if they had been made ready for market. Mud
dirt, and gravel were not simply splashed on
to the sides of buildings, but driven into the
fibre, as if discharged from cannon. In one
case Il stable was lifted, carried over the tops
of the talest trees and deposited on hill SIN
or seven hundred feet away, the three horses
in it being unharmed. Indeed the catalogue
of ruin wrought by the tornado, and the mlrac
ulous escapes from it's violence, fatigue credu,
lityand defy the imagination Almost without
all exception, however, those who were warn
ed by the ominous rush and crash of the storm
longenougl to run to the cellars, escaped aeath
and with few exceptions all injuries also.
a." ''I can't get up early said poor victim
to his doctor "Oh yes you can," was the
reply, ''if you will only follow my ADVICE
What is your hour of rising - "Nine O'Clock.
"Wel, get up half an hour later every day
and in the course of a month you will fine
yourself up ut four in the morning"