Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1884-1886, 1886-05-21

aurora may come more perfectly &c
them than l have attempted 10 show
The Garnet Plaindealer, a few days
since, in a single sentence. without ex-
PLANTATION, asserts that tornadOes
are not more frequent than form
erly, or are not likely to be; that
statement inspires me to offer few
thoughts upon this branch of the tor.
nado question--as those friends of the
air should be called the Garnett paper
with majority of our state Journals
insist upon calling them cyclones; and
primarily Iwish our people would
divest themselves of continually using
misnomer when talking or writing
about these dreadful storms.
There is no authority for such an
Infringement of the rules ofetymology
and in the belief that l shall not be
accused of pedantry, l will venture
here the true definition of the two
words under discussion-as accepted
by meterologis.s in their nomenclature
of storms, and to whom we must nc.
cord the rights Of determining these
questions. The cyclone is purely an
ocean storm, from the Greek kuklos-
meaning circle; the cyclone is rarely
less than forty miles wide, but oftener
8 thousand. This storm, it must be
observed, is exactly what its name i'm
plies-one OF rotary character, NOV
ing in not On circle, straight forward
with an enormous radious as stated;
there is no swaying and bounding as
with our tornado, and it has center
of absolute calm.
The tornado-our special considera-
ton just now-is derived from the
Spanish, Portegues, Italian and Latin
all primarily, of course, from the
Latin tornare, torno, meaning to twist
The truthfulness of which definition,
all who ever witnessed tornado, will
cordially attest.
Fortunately the path of tbs tornado
is limited, nor does il move con-
tinuouslr, always, along the surface
of the earth until its force is spent; il
frequently bounds over immense areas
sometimes dissipating in the upper
regions of The atmosphere, sometimes
striking the ground st remote dis.
tances from the locality in which
it had its genesis of destruction
Nor do ali the tornadoes which are
formed in our latitude ever reach the
earih's surfcce; have watched many
Of them at relatively high attitudes,
full of all the clements of destruction,
seething, Kissing, boiling, with their
funncl-shaped appendages swaying
backward and forward eager for the
infringement of something Of matter
tangible To whirl into chaos-rolling
onward with all the fury of hell over
the locality of my pOsition-then sud
denly melt into c,:iInueSS of an Octo-
Der tcrnooii, without ever greeting
mother earth with their rude embrace.
This brings me to the question:
"Are tornados more frequent than
formerly; and will they increase in vi
olence and number rs the years roll
on"
Ii must be borne in mind that in
taking the affirmative of the argument
all my ideas upon the subject are form
ulaied upon theory and fact. which
theory has for its foundation another
theory, wjici should it fail, of course
tie second, or my theory is 10; tcna-
bic, 81 my answers ere not ful affirm
ativeiy but intorr"g aiiyely.
The fact is, as has ben stated prev!-
ousiy, that the earth is great mag
net hanging in space-ihat is conceded
by tie scientific world; bat if the neb-
ular hypothesis of the genesis of
worlds Ohis i the first and basic the
DRY of ,ay theory he true, then the
earth could net always have been a
magnet: there must have been time
whom it commenced to become mag
netiZed!-ihe same causes that permit
ted this, are at work now, and tho ia
tensiiy Of magnetism increased con-
stantly, and Is increasing now. Con-
sequectly magnetic storms must in
crersc in violence if not in frequency.
in corresponding ratio.
And it is well known that nothing
is SO fatsi 10 the development of mag
netism rs heat, therefore, if the earth
was at first gaseous mass, then
molten sphere, as the nebular hypoth-
esis teaches, and that the earth gradu-
ally cooled and is still cooling, then
there must have been period in its
existence when il could not have been
susceptible to The magnetic influences
of the sun. That it is now magnet,
it is an undisputed fact, and if cool
Ing will continue 10 interrupt its Sc
ceptive power of that strange cosmic
force which is the cause of all our To-
cal per,urbations, in the category of
which are included all our storms and
If this be true, many generations
vet must be born before the increased
would be felt, for it must
come like the changes in the great ge-
Dlogic periods, so slowly, that a mil
ion years is but an hour in the vast