Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1889-02-08
TALES OF THE TORNADO.
QUICK AND TERRIBLE DEVASTATION
CAUSED BY THE WINDS.
Curious Freaks Wrought by the Lee Sum-
NIT Tornado-CIickens Picked Clean.
Houses Completely Destroyed In Quar-
ter of a Minute.


NIT Tornado-CIickens Picked Clean.
Houses Completely Destroyed In Quar-
ter of a Minute.
The premonitory symptom of the birth of
tornado is violent agitation among GER
tain low lying, mena cling black clouds, from
which protrudes. as the upshot of the strug-
gle, funnel SHAPED appendage, which de-
scends more or less rapidly toward the earth,
and begins its career of mischief the moment
but no sooner than, it touches it. Lifting
alternately and dropping, and swayjng with
slight Zigzagging movement from side to
side, the dusSy vaporous sheath, concealing
the gyrations of a " hirlwind terrifcally au-
dible from afar, advances with a rapidity
leaving scant time for thought or fight. The
funnel cloud" inclosing the Lee Summit
tornado made its appearance about
p. NJ. on May 30. 1879, looking like
large elephants trunk with tie small
end pointing downward. Another observer
compared it to an i'm nense serpent hung UP
by the head and writ hing in agony, its tail
curling and lashing as if actuated by the i'm
pulses of a living body. It would rise, fall
and careen from side to side like a balloon
The roaring was intense and could be heard
at distance of seventeen miles. A gyratory
motion in direction contrary to the hands
of watch was distinctly visible, and the
cloud, Us it approached boiling and twisting,
presented frightful appearance. For
twenty-five miles, however, it Travelled
harmlessly in the air at height of several
k,,,,. A. A.
of Missouri at several distinct intervals leav-
ing at each swoop a track of devastation
SIS feet wide. The gaps, where the
cloud had temporary retired upward, were
| altogether untouched, and tornadoes have
been known to descend just low enough
to reap away the summit foliage of trees
without hurting anything beneath.
ASTOUNDING DETAILS.
The inmates of Dr. Donnington's house at
| Lees Summit emerged from the cellar, to
which they had retired on the approach of
the storm, to find that their habitation had in
! the meantime twirled round as if on an axis.
and broken into kinding wood. Their ears
had told them nothing of the catastrophe.
| The crash of falling timbers was completely
| masked blythe hoarse believing of the tempest.
surprisingly minute activity was displayed
| by it Clothes and bed linen looked as If
some person out of pure mischief had care
| fully torn them into small strips. Several
chickens were completely denuded of their
| feathers An iron bound trunk in Mr. Thad-
deus ". Warden's house was torn to pieces,
and the lock found sticking in a rail, half a
mile to the northeast Photographs from an
! album which the trunl had contained were
carried four miles, and receipt for lumber
from DR.. Donnington'i house was recovered
from distance Of forty miles. Mrs. War
den's long hair was partly cut, partly torn,
| from her head, twisted into a rope, and laid
yard or two from where she stood.
| Some singular freaks" of the wind are re-
! corded. A carpet was taken up untorn from
| the floor to which it was securely tackled
| feather beds were ripped open, a sewing ma
! chine was broke into half q hundred pieces
| the six fragments of massive iron kettle
were dispersed in as many different direc-
tions, dog was carried 200 yards and found
dcad, with his head and shoulders driven into
the ground. A heavy lumber wagon was
| lifted over a corn fold 100 feet across, and
| deposited intact on the other side while an
adjacent house was, without injury, moved
six inches from its original position.
Mr.. Quissenberry's house, on the other
hand, was struck as if by a cannon shot, and
completely wrecked, ald the debris of Mr.
Wardens dwelling was strewn over an area
of five square miles. Human life was not
spared. Most of the i'll fated Harris family
| vNnr.,cl l,a1
distributed. The ST. ferers were usual
| found thickly coated with viscous black mud
their eyes and ears closed, hair matted, some
times their very garments stripped off. And
all this havoc was wrought in scarcely more
than q quarter of a minute The previous
calm OF the air was re-established within
twenty seconds of the instant when it was
| first disturbed
QUICKER THAN A MAGICIAN.
| The "Delphos tornado" rivaled the Dav-
enport brothers in its capacity for untying
knots. In the house o. Mr. Mcbride was q
| strong trunk, clasped ind bound with iron,
in which $4,000 in greenbacks was deposited.
THE money was tied up in $500 packages,
containing smaller pack kages of 500 each,
which crossed each other at right angles and
the whole was firmly bound together by
strong cords; then all the large packages
were tightly bound together and placed in a
bag, which was securelv tied, deposited In the
| trunk and locked theI Elm. After the storm
all but $500 was picked up in separate bills,
scattered here and there throughout the rub
bish
This tornado repeated the fowl plucking
| feat Of that OF Lees Summit, which had
been earlier performed by the Snow tornado
of 1857, and by the May field tornado of 1912
In this last storm a locl. OF fifteen sheep had
their legs broken, and some their entrails
torn out by the force Cf the wind! But we
| should vainly attempt % enunerate all the
! fantastic details Of such occurrences. MIR.
Kings house, near Dell hos, was planted en-
tire by the whi-lwind traversing that dis
trict, on the bank of the Saline river, 800 feet
from its original site. A cat was borne half q
mile, and left as fiat as if cider press had
passed over it. man, violently impelled
through the air, made IL fruitless attempt to
arrest his flight by grasping, as he passed, at
the name of horse. He was discovered later
far in advance of the SPOT with bunch OF
horsehair in one hand, his lat in the otheri-
Edinburgh Review.
The most remarkable collection of photo,
| graphs in the world is that now on exhihi.
| ton at st. Petersburg One Krassowsl1i, for
twenty-five years, has had himself photo
l m -, 10 "a